Where to buy specialty decaf coffee in Germany
Germany decaffeinates more coffee than it sells as specialty decaf. Here is what ships to a German address, and why Germany is the best place in Europe to taste the processes side by side.
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- Decaf-only roasters
The state of decaf here
Germany decaffeinates more coffee than it sells as specialty decaf. It is home to two major CO₂ decaffeination plants — CR3 in Bremen and Coffein Compagnie in Hamburg — and to no decaf-only roaster at all, despite being one of the largest specialty markets in Europe. That combination makes it the best place on the continent to taste the processes side by side.
Getting it here
Inside the EU customs union. The practical advantage here is not shipping but proximity to the plants: German roasters have the easiest access to CO₂ decaf in Europe, and BLACKBIRD carries CO₂, Swiss Water and sugarcane EA lots simultaneously.
What counts as decaf here
0.1% caffeine by dry weight, for roasted coffee
Set by Directive 1999/4/EC.
What the regulation actually says →Locally sold as: entkoffeinierter Kaffee · koffeinfreier Kaffee · Decaf Bohnen · entkoffeinierte Kaffeebohnen
What ships to Germany
All checked Aug 2026 — check the date before ordering
D Stands For Vienna, Austria · decaf only
Austria's first dedicated decaf roastery, roasting small batches in Vienna on an electric Stronghold. They buy both direct from producers and from decaffeination plants, which is an unusually candid thing to say out loud. Notable for carrying a genuine low-caf lot — a Los Nogales Typica — alongside the decafs, which almost no decaf-only house does. Their shipping policy page still references an October 2024 resumption date for paused EU destinations. Treat the country list as indicative and confirm at checkout.
Ships · AT DE IT FR NL CH NO · shipping to some other EU countries was paused over packaging (EPR) rules — check before ordering
Les Révélations Paris, France · decaf only
The most flavour-ambitious of the European decaf-only operations: a Q Grader roasting on a Loring S35, with a range split between DÉCLIC blends and DÉCOLLAGE single origins from Colombia, Ethiopia, Kenya and Panama. Water process covers most of the range, with a handful of EA and at least one CO₂ lot. They state plainly which lots are not organic-certified and why, which is more honesty than the category norm. Seasonal pause — the site says roasting resumes 31 August 2026. Check availability before ordering.
Ships · FR DE IT ES CH BE NL GB EU · 30+ European destinations; free delivery to a French pick-up point from €39
Calm Coffee Roastery London, United Kingdom · decaf forward
Founded in Peckham by a former Monmouth roasting-team member who cut caffeine around the birth of his daughter. The range is structured as a ladder — full caf, half caf, low caf, decaf — which frames caffeine as a dial rather than a binary, and no other roaster in this directory does that. One of the very few UK decaf specialists to state EU shipping explicitly.
Ships · GB IE DE FR ES NL · UK-to-EU customs and VAT apply and are not addressed on their site
The Coffeevine Amsterdam, Netherlands · curator
A curated multi-roaster box out of Amsterdam, shipping to 60+ countries, whose monthly selection has a standing decaf slot alongside the European and global roasters. They have used that slot to platform specialists — Calm, D Stands For and Les Révélations have all been featured — which makes them a discovery route more than a supply route. Process varies by featured roaster rather than being a house choice. At time of checking both the decaf subscription and the individual decaf bag were sold out. The decaf line appears to run in cycles rather than continuously.
Ships · WORLD · flat-rate carbon-neutral tracked shipping to Europe and the rest of the world
Germany has an odd relationship with decaf. It is where a large share of Europe’s CO₂ decaffeination physically happens — CR3 in Bremen, Coffein Compagnie in Hamburg — and the supercritical CO₂ method was invented here, by Kurt Zosel at the Max Planck Institute für Kohlenforschung, patented in 1970.
And there is still no German roaster built around decaf.
What Germany does have, which nowhere else in Europe does as conveniently, is process variety in one place. BLACKBIRD near Stuttgart carries CO₂, Swiss Water and sugarcane EA lots simultaneously. If you want to understand what the processes actually do — rather than reading about it, including here — buying three bags from one roaster and tasting them on the same day with the same water is the experiment that tells you something. Germany is the easiest place in Europe to run it.
The 0.08% detail
Worth knowing if you are reading German labels: Germany’s threshold for calling roasted coffee entkoffeiniert is 0.08% caffeine, stricter than the roughly 0.1% usually cited across Europe.
The EU-level figure people quote — 0.3% under Directive 1999/4/EC — governs coffee extracts, meaning instant, not roasted beans. There is no single EU directive setting a caffeine ceiling for roasted decaf; it is national law doing the work. Germany’s is among the tightest.
Reading the list below
Filtered to roasters shipping to Germany or EU-wide. Note that where a German roaster’s shipping policy could not be confirmed, it is listed as unconfirmed rather than assumed — check at checkout.
Questions
- Is there a decaf-only roaster in Germany?
- No, despite Germany being one of the largest specialty coffee markets in Europe and home to two major CO₂ decaffeination plants. German specialty roasters carry decaf; none is built around it.
- What is the legal caffeine limit for decaf in Germany?
- Germany's stated threshold is 0.08% caffeine, which is stricter than the roughly 0.1% commonly cited across Europe. EU Directive 1999/4/EC sets 0.3%, but that governs coffee extracts — instant — not roasted beans.
- Where is coffee decaffeinated in Germany?
- CR3 in Bremen and Coffein Compagnie in Hamburg both run CO₂ decaffeination. CR3's process is documented as subcritical liquid CO₂ rather than supercritical. A good deal of Europe's CO₂ decaf passes through Germany even when the roaster is elsewhere.
Other countries