Blocked

How was the caffeine taken out of this coffee?

ALS-COFFEE-1.2-DECAF-001

This question matters to a buyer and CANNOT be answered from a public product page today. What would be required is stated in full.

Why this cannot be run

Blocked by G-06, G-03.

Assertion

decaffeination_method equals_one_of swiss_water, mountain_water, supercritical_co2, ethyl_acetate, methylene_chloride

  • swiss_water
  • mountain_water
  • supercritical_co2
  • ethyl_acetate
  • methylene_chloride

Applicability

applies when
the product is decaffeinated coffee
signal
undecidable_from_public_data — whether a product is decaf is itself one of the questions being asked, so this entry cannot be gated by the engine and must not fire on caffeinated coffee

Accepted evidence

  • product_description — an explicit named process attributed to this product, ideally in a labelled field such as a decaffeination row in a specification block
  • structured_data — the same named process inside the JSON-LD product description

Explicitly insufficient evidence

What does not count, and why. Published because the omission is where a check quietly becomes a claim.

  • a specification row labelled only "Process"
    On virtually every coffee page Process names the post-harvest treatment at the mill — washed, natural, honey — and says nothing about decaffeination, so a check keyed on that word reads a drying method as a solvent disclosure. This is the most dangerous near-miss in the entire standard.
  • the word decaf or decaffeinated anywhere
    It establishes the product class and never the method, and it is the string a title, tag or collection handle is most likely to carry.
  • "gently decaffeinated", "our proprietary decaf process", "premium decaf"
    These name no process and cannot be checked against anything.
  • a method named on an About or FAQ page while this product is silent
    Roasters commonly stock more than one decaf origin processed at more than one facility, so a site-level statement does not establish a fact about this lot.
  • "washed decaf"
    This means washed at origin AND decaffeinated by some means; it does not mean the caffeine was removed with water.
  • the process named only in a customer review or question block
    A buyer's words are not the seller's statement, and the engine correctly refuses review context as evidence.

Conflict rules

  • When a post-harvest process and a decaffeination method both appear — then the two are orthogonal and both may be stated; a checker must key on a decaf-scoped label rather than on the bare word process precedence: product_description > structured_data
  • When the page names a facility rather than a method — then a named processor is stronger evidence than a method word, because it makes the claim checkable by asking one company

Discrimination

Authored expectation: no prediction, confidence low. The numeric band this standard used to carry is not published at this grammar version.

Specialty roasters increasingly name the method as a competitive signal while mainstream sellers almost never do, so the band spans two seller populations. Method disclosure is voluntary everywhere, which is the reason the question exists.

The numeric fail-rate band this reasoning was authored with is NOT carried at grammar 1.2 and is not reproduced here. Authored bands held 1 of 10 against this category's own sample and every miss was HIGH, so a direction derived from the band would inherit the error that condemned it (SCHEMA.md §9.3 step 3). The band survives in ALS-COFFEE v1.1 (standard_hash f8ec2780f60c38931913e5b6cd37506500c8462709209de7180ba6691d6137e7), which is byte-frozen and still served.

For a shopper

There is no rule anywhere requiring a seller to say how the caffeine was removed, which is why a consumer-testing organisation tells readers to phone the supplier and ask. The methods differ materially — some use a chlorinated solvent, some an ester, some carbon dioxide, some only water and green coffee extract.

For a merchant

Name the decaffeination process in a labelled field on the product page, distinct from the post-harvest process row, and name the facility where you know it, so a buyer can check by asking one company.

Grounding

  • Consumer Reports (consumer_guide)
    that there are no labelling rules requiring disclosure of how coffee was decaffeinated, and that consumers are advised to ask the supplier directly — advice written only because the demand exists and the label does not meet it
  • National Geographic, reporting the Clean Label Project campaign (trade_press)
    that advocates are actively campaigning for coffee companies to list the decaffeination process on labels, which necessarily means it is not required today
  • Canadian Food Inspection Agency, Canadian Food Compositional Standards (regulator)
    that a national compositional standard prescribes the common name for decaffeinated coffee and a caffeine ceiling while containing no requirement to declare the extraction solvent or process