# How decaf is decaf?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-decaf-is-decaf/513432>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [October 11, 2009, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-decaf-is-decaf/513432 "2009-10-11T21:13:29Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Lobsang](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobsang/32/4067_2.png) [@Lobsang](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobsang)\
**Post date:** [October 11, 2009, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-decaf-is-decaf/513432/1 "2009-10-11T21:13:29Z")

</div>

In the evenings, when I make Decaf coffee I put two teaspoons of coffee in instead of one. It’s the only way to make the taste tolerable.

But I’ve a vague recollection of hearing that decaffeinated coffee isn’t _completely_ caffeine free.

Exactly (or approximately) how much _less_ caffeine is there in decaf than the equivalent amount of ‘caf’?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Brainiac](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8797f3/32.png) [@Brainiac](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Brainiac)\
**Post date:** [October 11, 2009, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-decaf-is-decaf/513432/2 "2009-10-11T21:31:38Z")

</div>

When they say Sanka is 97% caffeine free they mean it contains 3% as much as regular joe.  
If you double it, that’s 6%.  
But if you like strong coffee, such as Starbucks, which is made with more coffee per serving than that served at McDonald’s you are probably back to 3% of that.  
But now that I looked on Wiki, I find that EU decaf is almost completely decaffeinated.[Decaffeination - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decaf)

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![sevenwood](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6de8d8/32.png) [@sevenwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sevenwood)\
**Post date:** [October 11, 2009, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-decaf-is-decaf/513432/3 "2009-10-11T21:53:12Z")

</div>

[This site](http://www.energyfiend.com/the-caffeine-database) claims that an 8 oz brewed cup of regular coffee contains 108mg of caffeine, while the same amount of brewed decaf contains 6mg.

I’ll bet that a precise answer depends on your particular brand of coffee. My can of Folgers “classic decaf”, for instance, claims that it is 99.7% caffeine free.