Decaffeinated, Real Coffee

reeb writes "ABC News Australia reports that Brazilian scientists have discovered a naturally occurring but rare coffee plant, native to Ethiopia, that is 'almost free of caffeine.' Decaf without the genetic engineering?"

Comments

Yippee!

[justanyone]

Cross breeding may take a while, though, so maybe by the time I'm not allowed to have caffeine anymore (vis-a-vis old age restrictions on my cardiac function) I'll have that option.

Granted, I'm not 18 anymore, but I'm not 40 yet either.

Re:Yippee!

[b-baggins]

So. Genetic engineering by cross breeding for fifty years is good. Genetic engineering by gene insertion in the laboratory to produce the exact same result in 5 years is bad.

I see, now.

Re:Yippee!

[Deagol]

Not this again....

Yes, there are those of us who see these as two entirely different things. You (and the scientists) may think the end result is "the exact same result" but I'm sceptical. There's no such thing as a free lunch.

While by its very nature, DNA provides for some sanity checks on what's viable, artificial mingling of DNA in the lab hasn't been through as rigorous a Q&A procedure as good old natural reproduction. I don't care if the resulting "species" can continue to pro-create -- it cheated by skipping a few important steps to being with.

I'm not a Luddite, folks. I think the science is cool and promising. But I think we shouldn't "go there" until we know what the hell we're doing. Look at the panacea antibiotics once were, and now look at how royally screwed up the situation now is. Genetic fudgery can have far more catastrophic results fifty years from now.

Re:Yippee!

[Deagol]

Funny that I don't hear a Call to Arms to stop the practice of selective breeding for desired traits.

You're looking in the wrong crowd. :)

My wife is one such person. She used to groom dogs, and she worked at a pet shop and at a local chapter of the Humane Society. So she's familiar with the results of poor breeding.

It's not so much that breeding for a particular trait is bad, as much as doing so at the detriment of other important traits.

The AKC is pure evil. The fact that they have "specs" for registerable breeds and that they allow "line breeding" and inbreeding is proof (in my mind, at least). See this link for evidence. This can result in bad traits. Two well-known examples are that Dalmations are often deaf (though, to be fair, it's more common in any purebred dog than a mutt), and that German Shepherds often develop bad hips.

It may be an American (capitalistic make-money-fast) kind of thing. Appearently, the original shepherd lines from Germany were execllent dogs. It wasn't until they were bred for AKC specs that they went downhill. Again, German Angora rabbits are excellent dual-purpose meat and wool animals (we've researched this, as we raise own own rabbits for meat as well as wool), but the Americanized version -- the "show quality" one -- is lacking in both traits, but it looks prettier.

Silly breeders. :)

Appalling

[PD]

This is appalling news. We must write our congress people to tell them we want a war against the lack of drugs. This heretical coffee plant must be wiped out. Coffee should have caffeine!

Re:Appalling

[jc42]

This is appalling news. ... Coffee should have caffeine!

Don't worry. The marketers will quickly come up with a coffee drink based on this new coffee, with caffeine added. Just as they have done with most soft drinks. Citrus fruit don't contain caffeine, but most commercial citrus drinks do.

Decaf without the genetic engineering?

[A Big Gnu Thrush]

Decaf without the genetic engineering?

From www.kraftfoods.com/maxwellhouse/mh_decaff.html

The Maxwell House® Family of naturally decaffeinated coffees offers the full-flavored taste of regular coffee, without the caffeine. Maxwell House® decaffeinates its coffees using pure water and natural effervescence. The effervescence gently draws the caffeine out of the beans, preserving their delicate coffee flavor.

I don't touch decaf, but who would genetically engineer decaf beans?

Decaf coffee is not genetically modified!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

This is important because the headline/blurb is misleading.

Decaffeination is done through a process called 'supercritical fluid extraction' with carbon dioxide as a solvent. Turns out, with enough pressure and temperature, a substance can go 'supercritical', where it has the simultaneous properties of a gas, liquid, and solid. By fine tuning the temperature and pressure, it can act as a very selective solvent, only leeching out the caffeine and leaving in all the other delicious coffee flavors. The caffeine is then recovered and sold in pills or other products.

Not that you should drink decaf. Caffeine is the primary reason to drink coffee.

Re:Decaf coffee is not genetically modified!!!

[etymxris]

All about decaffeination.

Why are you afraid?

[Tom7]

What is the problem with "genetic engineering"? We've been doing it for ages with breeding, as has "nature."

Re:Why are you afraid?

[SEE]

What we traditionally call "genetic engineering" is different from breeding or natural selection because it adds genes that weren't there before while breeding just juggles them about.

False. Selective beeding and natural selection both involve the addition (through "natural" radiation, "natural" chemical mutagens, and "natural" retroviruses) of geners that weren't there before.

For example, there's a specific DNA sequence that, oddly enough, occurs in both certain breeds of cattle and the rattlesnakes that live in the region where that variety of cattle originated. It's probably the result of a retrovirus that was in the snake population, and was transferred to an ancestral cow by a snakebite. This natural inter-species gene transfer, of course, is identical to a standard method of interspecies genetic engineering -- except in deliberate genetic engineering we have some idea what the gene we're transferring does, and we know to keep an eye on the recipient of the genes. The natural version moves random genes, and we don't even know that it occured.

it's not 'decaffeinated'

[gl4ss]

..it never had any caffeine to start with.

it's cafeine free.. with the same taste apparently.

why would you drink coffee just for the taste is beyond me though when you could be drinking it with caffeine ;)

Could be useful

[Dr. Spork]

I don't think I'm alone in preferring big cups of very strong coffee (made with an espresso machine), but I'm not always interested in the huge shot of caffine that a large, dense cup of espresso gives me. I get jittery, post unwise things online, and generally have to pace for a while before the peak buzz wears off and I can get real work done. So if this stuff could be bred with some of the really tasty beans to produce a delicious coffee that has, say 20% of the caffine, that's the stuff I'd be buying. (As long as FairTrade growers grew it.)

Re:Oh, here we go

[Tackhead]

> Cue a host of teenagers racing to prove how cool they are by saying things like "If there's no caffeine there's no point ROR!"

There's plenty of point to decaffeinated coffee.

I mean, once you get the caffeine out of the beans, you can grind the beans up and throw them in garbage bags marked "decaf", and people will buy them.

But more importantly, after processing a few tonnes of beans this way, you have a farking huge mountain of pure caffeine.

Which you can grind up and sprinkle in your coffee, or add to your Jolt, or Bawls, or just mainline the shit.

There will be flavour loss

[dnamaners]

Unfortunately there will be flavor loss in caffeine free or decaffeinated coffee. it is inevitable as one of the major flavor compounds is the caffeine itself. caffeine has a strong acid (sour) flavor and is quite distinctive as a coffee component. just bite on a caffeine pill some time and compare it to a cup of standard starbucks black roast. i personally prefer a slightly sour (perhaps acrid) coffee with a slight fruity nose. of course decaffeination will not affect the flavor of the average low grade truck stop/diner coffee as that is already very nasty.

Re:No. Not Insightful.

[squiggleslash]

There's a reason fish don't breed with strawberries in the natural world. It might not be a good idea to discover exactly what that reason is until we know a whole lot more about the way DNA works.

Not entirely sure why you were modded flamebait, especially as many of the responses to yours seemed to be responding to an entirely different argument.

Whatever though, the reason why fish do not breed with strawberries is because fishberries would taste absolutely disgusting. I thought I better let you know that.

File This One...

[Ann Elk]

...under "Products Least Likely To Be Sold By Think Geek...