Lecture Description
Caffeine is a psychoactive substance that is consumed widely around the world, not only as part of the morning routine of many people around the world. However, since caffeine tolerance is very person dependent as well as caffeine consumption can affect sleep quality, the sector of decaffeinated coffee has grown significantly over the past years.
An important process of decaffeination is the Swiss Water decaffeination (SWD) process, where a water-based, caffeine-free green coffee extract is used to remove caffeine from green beans. The objective of our study was the comparison of pre-decaf and post-decaf coffees to understand, how decaffeination impacts the composition of the green coffee beans, the roasting as well as the Espresso-extraction and the final coffee. The results were performed on three decaffeinated coffee pairs, which were analysed before and after the decaffeination process.
Learning Objective:
How SWD process impacts the chemical composition of green beans
How SWD process impacts on the flavour formation during roasting independent of the coffee that was decaffeinated
How SWD process maintains the flavour characteristics of a coffee
Date: Thursday, June 26, 2025
Time: 2:00 - 3:00 PM
Location: Lecture Room W
This lecture is free to attend with a World of Coffee entry badge. Register to attend World of Coffee Geneva here.
Lecturers / Presenters
Sebastian Opitz (he/him)
Head of green coffee at the coffee excellence center ZHAW
Dr. Sebastian Opitz is the head of green coffee at the Coffee Excellence Center of the Zurich University of Applied Sciences in Switzerland. The main research focus lies on connecting properties of green coffee with cup profile by using a wide variety of analytical chemistry methods and sensory evaluation to explore the impact of origin (coffee variety and species, terroir, post-harvest processing etc.) on final cup. As a AST in green coffee Sebastian is part of the SCA green coffee creators group that develops the curriculum of the SCA Coffee skills program and also teaching green coffee from tree to trade in continuous educations programs of the ZHAW.