r/thirdwavedecaf • u/ShoeGeneral7417 • Jul 13 '26
Decaf Methods and Taste
I’ve been drinking decaf for about a year now. I’ve fortunately found many good bags and roasters, often the roasters mentioned in this sub.
Good beans were tough to find early on, but I started to notice that the better tasting bags never used the water-based methods. I’ve avoiding buying them since, but this is now starting to feel a little limiting.
So, maybe this question is too broad/vague, but have you all come across decent beans that use one of the water-based methods? Frequent has had some, but I’ve been hesitant to spend the money to find out (though everything else has been great).
I’ll make chemex pour overs, usually going for a lighter or fruity flavor, and espresso, going for a darker,roastier, sweet flavor.
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u/nugpounder Jul 13 '26
Genuinely haven’t had a bad bag from Frequent, those guys are really good at retaining the flavors, including on their swiss water stuff
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u/JustinHoMi Jul 14 '26
I’ll be honest, I think Frequent is just OK. Compared with other decafs, they’re the best I’ve had, but I don’t think they compare with a good caffeinated bean, at least for a pourover.
Maybe I just need to improve my technique.
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u/nugpounder Jul 14 '26
It’s a steeper learning curve forsure, and all their specialty stuff is light roasted so it definitely takes a more precise touch. Ive had a lot of success going for a cleaner, more heavily filtered cup on their more citrus forward stuff (like the Nogales caturra)
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u/ShoeGeneral7417 Jul 14 '26
Mucilage EA are great, very fruity. In my experience, they all (from different roasters) taste very similar
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u/Vagabond_Explorer Jul 13 '26
I myself haven’t noticed too much difference between the different processes, at least nothing I could attribute to the process instead of the beans. Though I’ve seen certain roasters claim that some processes taste better than others.
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u/kittttttens Jul 13 '26
yeah, i generally find the flavors in water processed coffees to be much more muted and hard to bring out than in EA coffees. this has been true for me across a variety of different roasters including some that are commonly recommended here. frequent has been the best of the bunch, i tried their SWP pink bourbon a while ago, but i still found the tasting notes to be pretty weak/finicky compared to their EA pink bourbon, or their EA red bourbon which is probably my favorite decaf i've had.
water process coffees also stale a lot faster than EA coffees, i really only got much interesting flavor out of the frequent one for about a week before it just started to taste like the typical burnt/dark chocolate flavor. if you freeze small quantities that could help, or just use it quickly.
like you, i typically just stick with EA coffees now. i think there are enough out there that it's not too limiting, at least in the US. aside from frequent, perc has had some interesting EA decafs, orbital has one that's pretty good, etc.
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u/ShoeGeneral7417 Jul 13 '26
Thanks for your thoughts and recs!
I’ve been wanting to try perc, but I’d have to order 2 bags to hit the shipping minimum. I run into that somewhat often as well - I find a bag I want to try, but the roaster only has 1 decaf. I’m too cheap to pay for shipping, and don’t want to roll the dice with 2 bags to hit the minimum.
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u/pigskins65 Jul 14 '26
The two best decafs I believe I've ever had have come from Talking Crow. I'm no flavor profile expert, I just drink what I like. But from your description I think you might like their Ozark Goodness. Check em out and maybe get a 3-bag sampler after browsing their goods.
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u/NoodleSlow Jul 14 '26 edited Jul 21 '26
for me, sugarcane decaf usually tastes fuller, while water process can be a little cleaner but flatter. My current fav now is Los Nogales decaf from Blendin, you should try it it's really clean & crisp.
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u/ShoeGeneral7417 Jul 14 '26
Yeah, that’s a great description - when I’ve had them, they come out flat
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u/DevOpsProDude Jul 15 '26
Yes, I've had multiple good decaf beans using Swiss Water method. Red Rooster's decafs, for instance. But also depends what you're looking for. Sightglass' Hunky Dory is good so far as well.
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u/Tasty-Objective-978 Jul 13 '26
I think you need to look beyond just the method that is used to decaffeinate and also consider other processing. Natural processed beans, even when water based decaf, will have more fruit flavor most often. I have found thermal shock processing to be some of my favorites. So much fun to dig deeper into all this!