Coffee also brings to my mind about decaffeinated coffee…. decaffeinating is the procedure where caffeine is removed from coffee, tea, cocoa, etc. In other words a coffee without caffeine, the main components which gives coffee its bitter, acidic flavor. It is noteworthy that Coffee is not just as a vehicle for caffeine but also supposed to contain 1,200 different chemical components, the properties of which is yet to be unmasked. However, more than half of them are supposed to contribute to the flavor of coffee. Since I am not a scientist & even if I am one, I don’t think I could understand even a little bit of the chemical composition in my life time. Caffeine is the inbuilt property/character of coffee so if you remove that then you have to add something to make it taste similar like the fat free milk or sugar free sweetener. The question is how good is the added material whatever it is to our health? Sometimes I wonder why anyone would want to do experiments on removing something from the object created by Mother Nature. What a waste of time, energy & funds!! If someone is sensitive to caffeine then simply avoid drinking it. When coffee is decaffeinated, the coffee flavor becomes milder so you end up adding extra powder too. There are various methods to remove the caffeine from coffee from the fresh green beans. Still it is also said that the so called decaffeinated coffee still contains a smaller percentage of caffeine!! So technically no coffee is caffeine free? Arabica coffee naturally contains much lesser caffeine compared to Robusta coffee. See Mother Nature is even giving us a natural choice!! So why don’t we switch to that.. or better still is to drink water… genetically altered beans contains different levels of caffeine… I am afraid of any GM products & I feel knowingly or unknowingly we are all the voluntary guinea pigs. Since I cannot fully avoid GM food as I am not self-sustained, I would rather stick to Arabica original than any fancy variety as much as possible… but the problem is how do we know which powder came from which plant unless we pick, process, roast & powder at home… it is said that over frying or grilling is not good because the food turns into carbon… then I wonder doesn’t over roasting coffee turns bean into carbon?? Since I cannot understand how a rule applies different to different product, I would rather drink the coffee I like & enjoy without much thinking about the plus & minus of coffee. Like I would tell my children, anything in moderate is good so is the coffee… too much of anything including love can kill you!! When we were small, it would rain very heavy for three months (something like 2013 rain but better distributed) called malegala (rainy season). So no matter what everyone would get wet somehow or the other. Sometimes even intentionally we would get wet for fun. So everyone wanted to drink many cups of coffee in a day. Whoever comes & goes wanted coffee. Then in between the busy schedule who would prepare coffee every time? Easy solution is the age old famous Bella-Kapi. Early morning in a big pot light coffee (couple of liters with few table spoons of powder) is prepared with bella (jaggery) & is kept on the kanvole (wood stoves used to have a small opening besides the main opening) which kept it warm as long as there was fire in the stove which was almost throughout the day! So when anyone wants just takes how much Bella-Kapi one needed & add milk. It was consumed practically throughout the year. You might get the privilege of tasting it in some households even today. It would have a unique taste thought of which brings nostalgic memories to me. My late beloved mother Patsy (may her soul rest in peace) was a coffee lover & drank countless cups of coffee per day. She lived up to 98 years & she had no BP, diabetes or any major sickness & had great skin. Till 94 years she would read & her memory was fine too… I am not telling that coffee was her longevity secret but guess coffee does not have very bad effect on human body.

(Part 3 of 9)