The Brazilian Coffee Research Institute has embarked on a milestone in a two-decade project to develop decaffeinated coffee varieties that it believes could have great commercial potential.

Potential Market for Decaffeinated Coffee Varieties

If the project is successful, the resulting varieties could find a market place in large consumer regions such as Europe and the United States, among consumers who prefer them to existing decaffeinated brands that are the result of chemical or industrial processes.

Program Development at Instituto Agronomico de Campinas

The program is being developed at the Instituto Agronomico de Campinas (IAC), a leading coffee research center that has introduced many of the high-yielding coffee plants that have helped Brazil become a force in the global coffee market, providing over a third of the exchange.

The IAC team said they have begun regional field trials of some of the varieties they have developed over several years by crossing different coffee plants that are naturally very low in caffeine using their institution’s germplasm bank.

Lower Costs for Decaffeinated Coffee Companies

Companies that sell decaffeinated coffee can also benefit from lower costs as they can skip the decaffeination processes for regular coffee.

“Our results so far look promising, we are optimistic,” explains Julio Cesar Maestro, researcher who oversees the project at IAC.

Field Trials and Future Harvest

Some decaffeinated clones developed at the center are grown in different regions of Brazil. It usually takes two to three years for coffee trees to bear fruit, so it will be several more years before researchers can harvest and test this coffee.

Benefits of Decaffeinated Coffee

While many people drink coffee specifically in search of the energy boost that caffeine provides, some people cannot tolerate it or prefer decaffeinated coffee at the end of the day to avoid potential sleep disturbances.

Source: Guardian