Yorkshire Decaf
★★★★☆
Methylene chloride
Is Methylene Chloride decaffeination safe?
In coffee, the FDA allows coffee decaffeinated with methylene chloride to contain trace amounts of the substance of up to 10 parts per million, or 0.001%.
Health Canada's food safety regulations for extraction solvents also has a limit of 10 parts per million of Methylene chloride residue in tea leaves decaffeinated with the substance.
Unlike Carbon Dioxide decaffeination, there are strict limits (10 parts-per-million) on how much methylene chloride can remain in tea leaves that have been decaffeinated with it, and the limits are 5x stricter than the limits recommended by Health Canada for Ethyl Acetate decaffeination.
If you trust the brands to meet the health guidelines, teas decaffeinated with methylene chloride make welcome additions to any pantry.
What brands are saying
According to Yorkshire, this is the best decaffeination method to preserve flavour.
Our take
We're with Yorkshire on this. Tea decaffeinated with methylene chloride can be mistaken for non-decaf tea. It tends to have a strong steep and doesn't taste like something has been added to the tea. It generally tastes mellower than non-decaf tea, but it still hits the spot.
