What is the difference in colour between decaf coffee and regular coffee? 

The difference in colour between green regular coffee and decaffeinated coffee

When you open up a bag of green coffee from the Swiss Water Decaf Coffee Company and inspect the beans, the first thing you notice is the colour.

An ordinary non-decaf green bean has a bluish-green tint to it.

Decaf coffee, though, looks more like a straw yellow colour to a light cinnamon brown. This is, of course, because of the process of decaffeination.

So, when you’re roasting Swiss Water Decaf coffee, it takes absolute attention to detail and experience. The colour changes are more nuanced and difficult to notice especially towards the end of the roasting curve.

As Europe’s leading (and only) decaf coffee company, Decadent Decaf roasts Swiss Water Decaf week in week out, which makes us more experienced than most.

The difference in colour between roast regular coffee and roast decaffeinated coffee

Decaffeinated coffee always looks darker in colour than regular coffee. This is because the green decaffeinated coffee is lighter and paler as raw coffee before it is roasted.

With that in mind, we try and have a balanced approach with a medium to medium dark roast of our Swiss Water Decaf coffees. In short, we’re more classic about roasting than many indie roasters.

You can see the difference in regular and decaffeinated coffee with this colour pallete produced by the folks at Swiss Water Decaf:

difference in colour between decaffeinated and regular roast coffee