How does this community feel about decaf? And are there any really good decaf options at your local roaster or roaster of choice? I’m personally a big fan of decaf for a dessert latte in the evening. Unfortunately I’m still trying to find a really good decaf bean, but this one is good for a really dark roast, which is my preference for espresso.
I like Hoffmann’s stance on decaf personally. His thought is the “death before decaf” folks aren’t really into coffee as much, because they’re admitting they’re just into it for the caffeine, and those who drink decaf are willing to drink often times bad coffee (since most places don’t treat decaf with the same respect as regular) just to have a cup of coffee since they love it so much.
May I ask how decaf flavor is compared to equivalent caffeinated beans? Is there much of a difference? The only decaf I tasted is a sample of Lavazza decaf that came with my espresso machine and it tasted horrible but I assume is the brand since the regular Lavazza beans also tasted awful.
I’m not as educated as some folks here but in my experience, most places just don’t treat decaf with the same respect as regular, both roasters and cafés. It seems to be a bit of a snowball effect, where people don’t get decaf as much so the café doesn’t have as fresh of decaf beans, which makes people less likely to order them, so they’re even less fresh, and so on and so on, and then that in turn affects people’s perception of decaf, making them less popular to order from roasters, which then don’t prioritize it as much. There seem to be some places that really focus on decaf though, which is great to see. In my experience, most decaf tend to taste notably worse than their regular counterparts. Usually less clarity of flavour. The current top comment on this post explains it quite well though, I’d recommend reading that to get a better idea.