JPS5940414B2 - Datsukafueinkasiyokubutsuzairiyonoseihou - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates to the decaffeination of plant materials.

There has long been a recognized need for decaffeinated plant materials, especially beverages such as coffee and tea.

Common prior art techniques for decaffeination generally involve the use of an organic solvent such as trichlorethylene or chloroform, which is contacted with either the plant material or its aqueous extract.

When sufficient caffeine has been transferred to the solvent, the resulting caffeine solution is separated to allow subsequent processing of the decaffeinated material or extract.

These organic solvent-based decaffeination techniques have several drawbacks.

Particularly with respect to the end consumer, the use of prior art decaffeinating solvents often results in a substantial loss or denaturation of valuable flavor and aroma components in the final beverage.

As such, decaffeination is often responsible for products lacking high quality characteristics.

Furthermore, since the prior art solvents themselves often have deficiencies, there is an obvious concern regarding their contact with the plant material from which the food product is to be manufactured.

This has resulted in the development of complex and rigorous processing techniques to ensure complete solvent separation from the final product.

In accordance with the present invention, contacting a caffeine-containing plant material with a liquid, water-immiscible fatty substance, said fatty substance for a period of time sufficient to transfer caffeine from said plant material to said fatty substance. A method of making decaffeinated plant material is provided that includes maintaining contact between the substance and the plant material and separating the resulting caffeine-laden fatty material from the decaffeinated plant material.

As used herein, the term "fatty matter"
terial)” is any animal or vegetable fat or oil or mixture thereof or any portion thereof, in liquid form within the temperature ranges discussed below, useful for the removal of caffeine from caffeine-containing compositions. means.

These fatty materials typically consist essentially of esters of fatty acids (usually glycerol esters) and are available either in their natural form or as a result of conventional processing as is known in the art. can.

Furthermore, the fatty material used should desirably be a non-solvent for components of the plant material other than caffeine.

Thus, for example, the fatty substances of the invention can be either unsaturated or saturated fats or oils.

Similarly, unrefined or conventionally refined oils, as well as oils or oils with conventional additives such as antioxidants and preservatives, are all useful within the scope of the present invention.

However, it is desirable that the fatty material not substantially disturb the naturally occurring or added surfactants.

This substance stabilizes the emulsion that forms during agitation of the liquid composition used according to the invention and therefore increases the difficulty of this processing step, such as when centrifugation is required.

The fatty substances of the present invention include commercially available oils and fats, and many examples are readily available.

However, among these fatty substances, the edible ones are highly preferred, since their use reduces the need for special care in separating them from the plant material that is further processed as food products.

These fatty substances are useful for effecting decaffeination of the trap plant material to essentially any desired degree.

Thus, although essentially complete decaffeination is usually preferred, lesser degrees may also be provided depending on consumer demand.

However, in either case, a corresponding amount of caffeine becomes available as a valuable commercial by-product.

This fatty substance is used to extract caffeine from various plant materials, most commonly coffee or tea.

However, in order to facilitate decaffeination,
Preferably water is present.

This requirement appears to be due to the desirability of initially providing the caffeine in a water-solubilized or partially water-solubilized form to facilitate its availability to fatty substance decaffeination solvents.

This belief about the mechanism that the invention
) is not intended to limit the scope of the invention, but rather is stated merely as an attempt to explain what may occur therein.

Caffeine-containing plant materials that can be decaffeinated according to the present invention are optimally provided in either aqueous liquid or solid form.

If a solid form is used, water should still be present, but this may be bound within the solid.

Therefore, aqueous solutions of plant materials and plant materials with a significant water content are suitable compositions for decaffeination according to the invention.

Aqueous extracts of tea or roasted and ground coffee are well known and can be prepared by conventional means in the art.

However, since these extracts are themselves converted into beverage products, they are usually processed in a manner that minimizes exposure to conditions that result in the loss and/or deterioration of valuable flavor components. It should be.

One particular class of ingredients of these brews, the so-called volatiles or aromatics, are particularly sensitive in this regard.

They are therefore preferably removed early during processing and can only be recombined with more stable ingredients at or near the end of the beverage production cycle.

This removal and preservation of volatile or aromatic components of the plant material can be accomplished by means well known in the art.

Thus, for example, it is customary to strip aqueous extracts with steam, and through this technique aqueous condensates containing aromatic and volatile components are easily obtained.

This isolate can be dried at low temperatures until such time as these are recombined with the treated plant material components, for example by direct mixing prior to drying, or by application to the dried material itself following a short second drying step. stored under the following conditions.

Therefore, when the aqueous extract is decaffeinated with fatty substances, the aqueous solution of the plant material is preferably free of common volatile constituents.

Another liquid plant material to be decaffeinated according to the invention comprises an aqueous extract of plant material, which is formed specifically for the purpose of decaffeination and does not constitute any part of the final beverage product.

This embodiment of the invention is most suitable for plant materials such as coffee that typically require roasting or other processing to form the desired beverage ingredients.

This embodiment of the invention is an aqueous extract of green coffee beans.

The beans can be extracted with water to remove their caffeine content.

However, the resulting extract contains relatively few normal coffee beverage components since these water-soluble components are primarily produced only in the subsequent roasting of the beans.

Production of this extract is fairly simple.

All that is required is to contact the raw beans with sufficient water to dissolve their caffeine content, and the beans typically contain about 2 to 3 parts by weight of caffeine depending on their origin. contains.

Typically, dissolution is accomplished by countercurrent flow of beans and water; however, slurrying the beans in water for a sufficient period of time, typically 10 to 60 minutes, to allow the desired degree of decaffeination. or equivalent contact between them, this step is simply carried out.

However, even when green beans are extracted with water, some valuable beverage components are also removed to the aqueous phase.

One technique by which it is ensured that substantial losses of these desired components are avoided is through closed, periodic circulation of the aqueous extraction medium.

With this technique, the aqueous medium rapidly obtains the maximum concentration of water-soluble components of the raw bean seeds, including caffeine.

Subsequent selective removal of caffeine from the medium quickly reaches a dynamic equilibrium with respect to the water-soluble components of the green beans that are not removed by decaffeination of the medium.

A recyclable aqueous extraction medium is obtained.

In fact, regarding this dynamic equilibrium, when the recycled caffeine-free extraction medium comes into contact with green coffee beans,
Essentially only the caffeine is removed from it.

A system is thus obtained in which essentially only caffeine is removed from the raw beans within a short time.

Both recyclable extraction media and aqueous extracts, inter alia aqueous solutions containing essentially both caffeine and various water-soluble plant material components, are discussed in more detail.

Therefore, the technique of the present invention for treating liquid plant material with a fatty substance to remove caffeine can be applied to each in much the same way.

The liquid plant material is mixed with a suitable amount of liquid water-immiscible fatty material and kept mixed therein until the caffeine is transferred to the fatty material, and then the caffeine content is separated with a corresponding decrease.

These steps are carried out very simply because both phases are liquid, allowing easy and complete mixing under agitation, while the immiscibility of the two phases, aqueous and fatty, is This is because many known techniques, including decantation, permit virtually complete separation.

Of major importance to the efficiency of decaffeination are the caffeine solubility properties of fatty substances.

These properties depend on the particular substance selected and the temperature during mixing with the liquid plant material.

This effect is discussed as a partition coefficient for caffeine between equal volumes of fat and aqueous phases during mixing and at equilibrium.

More specifically, the affinity of a fatty material for caffeine is defined at constant temperature by the relationship:

Obviously, higher partition coefficients then indicate superior performance in performing decaffeination.

Table 1 below provides exemplary data for various fatty substances at different temperatures.

This data reflects an equilibrium obtained with a single mixture of a large amount of fatty substance and an aqueous caffeine solution.

It should be understood that the fatty materials actually used are merely representative commercially available products.

Thus, depending on the particular origin of a given material, some variation in the partition coefficient can be expected.

However, given this data and the further description provided herein, the properties and optimum conditions of use for other fatty materials within the scope of the present invention can be readily determined.

The contact time between the fatty phase and the flora is relatively unimportant.

Only a few minutes are required to reach equilibrium.

However, within the scope of the present invention, the optimum temperature for decaffeination with a particular fatty substance should be determined prior to use.

Exemplary data are shown in Table 1, but additional measurements can be made by well-known techniques and this aspect of the invention can thus be determined by simple experimentation after selection of the particular fatty substance to be used. .

In determining the optimum temperature, the particular substance, including location, is limiting as to the degree of variation desired.

Thus, the freezing point of the aqueous flora and the freezing point of the fatty phase define a lower limit for useful temperatures.

At the other end of this range, flavor degradation that occurs upon exposure of flavor and aroma components to high temperatures should be avoided.

However, decaffeination is usually carried out at 0 to 5°C.
10 to 30° C. is preferred for aqueous extracts.

If these components are essentially absent, even higher temperatures are useful, up to the unstable temperature for the particular plant material.

Once the particular fatty substance and temperature for decaffeination have been selected, consideration remains of the desired degree of decaffeination.

This is normally regulated, at least in part, through the ratio of plant to fatty substances.

Typically, a ratio of fatty material to aqueous plant material of about 20:1 will provide only a small portion of decaffeination in a single contact step.

Thus, for example, with this ratio, 0.035 and 0.0
A partition coefficient of 85 results in approximately 40 modulus and 65% decaffeination, respectively.

Of course, increasing the ratio of fatty substances to plant material will increase the degree of this decaffeination, while lower ratios (decaffeination will decrease).

However, in addition, the means by which contacting with the fatty substance is carried out influences the degree of decaffeination.

Decaffeination occurs as described above, but the one-step decaffeination process involves contacting a specified amount of aqueous extract with a specified amount of fatty material, sufficient to approach or reach caffeine partitioning equilibrium. It involves keeping these materials for a period of time and then separating the extract.

However, the efficiency of decaffeination can be increased by increasing the number of steps.

Accordingly, in a preferred embodiment of the invention, decaffeination is carried out in a multi-step process in which the plant material is contacted with successive portions of the fatty substance until the desired degree of decaffeination is obtained. .

Preferred embodiments of this include (briefly, continuously contacting a portion of the fatty material with the caffeine-containing composition, for a period of time sufficient to effect substantial transfer of caffeine to the fatty material). keeping the fat and aqueous phases in contact (this transfer is usually about a factor of 70 or more of the equilibrium partitioning therein), separating the aqueous and fat phases, and then adding the caffeine This is done by repeating this sequence of steps with additional portions of fatty material.

Yet another form of this preferred embodiment includes countercurrent membrane caffeination.

There, initially the caffeine-free fatty materials are arranged in reverse order by caffeine content.

A continuous amount of plant material is passed through. Thus, the fresh fatty material is first contacted with the most decaffeinated plant material volume and then with the higher caffeine content.

During the process of this embodiment, once the first volume of plant material reaches the desired degree of decaffeination, it is simply bypassed, while a new volume with the highest caffeine content is connected downstream to Keep constant volume and proper order of contact with fatty substances.

It is further noted that the aqueous solution or extract of plant material contains, for example, 2 to 60 g of total weight of soluble solids.

However, usually the solution to be decaffeinated is decaffeinated for 10 min before contacting the fatty substance caffeine solvent.
It is desirable to have a soluble solids concentration of between 50 and 50 grams.

For the purpose of minimizing the subsequent volume of liquid available for the decaffeination step, as well as for the purpose of reducing the amount of water that must ultimately be removed from the preparation or extract to be dried into solid form. The above concentrations are preferred.

Concentration is obtained by techniques known in the art.

Again, since this aqueous extract ultimately provides a dried beverage product, it is desirable that this concentration be obtained under conditions that minimize the potential for adverse effects in terms of flavor.

It is therefore preferred that techniques such as low pressure evaporation or freeze concentration be used that avoid exposure to high temperatures for significant periods of time.

The invention also includes the use of fatty substances for the direct decaffeination of solid plant material.

Examples of this solid are ground, broken, and, most desirably, green coffee beans, which are provided in whole form.

Roasted coffee beans can also be used.

However, the volatiles should be removed first to avoid undue loss of valuable beverage ingredients.

Consequently, although complete decaffeination of green beans is most preferred, and the following discussion of this embodiment is specifically directed to this, other plant materials can be treated in a similar manner.

The use of solid plant material is a particularly preferred embodiment of the invention as it alleviates some of the disadvantages of processing aqueous solutions of plant material.

Thus, separation of the fatty substance from the caffeine-containing composition is facilitated by the plant material being in solid form while the fatty substance remains liquid.

Separation of beans and fatty substances is most conveniently carried out by simple drainage of the beans, and where centrifugal force is used to facilitate this separation, fairly simple mechanical devices are suitable. There is.

Furthermore, in the separation of green coffee beans from liquid fatty substances, the degree of separation is essentially 100 parts.

While even the most complex of immiscible liquid separations results in some residual of one liquid within the other, this problem does not arise here.

Once most of the fatty materials have been separated from the beans, a secondary physical refining step, such as directing a burst of steam through the beans, can essentially separate 100% of the remaining fatty materials. forgive.

Furthermore, even this additional step can be made unnecessary.

When virtually flavorless fatty substances are used, incomplete separation has little, if any, effect on the flavor of the final beverage product, due to the post-decaffeinated roasting and extraction process of the beans. does not occur.

Green coffee beans should contain some moisture in order to be in a form that readily undergoes decaffeination.

The beans normally naturally contain 8 to 10% water, but a small amount (at least about 20 parts by weight) is preferred.

However, the upper limit of water content may vary further.

Decaffeination of caffeine-containing compositions containing raw beans is preferably performed in a free solution, so as to avoid separation problems associated with mixing liquids and possible loss of valuable plant material components dissolved in this water. Performed in the absence of water.

Thus, in embodiments of the invention, the total weight of the green beans is about 2
Preferably it contains 0 to 60 inches of water, optimally about 40 to 60 inches.

Adding water to raw beans is easy.

Thus, for example, the beans are simply soaked in water and kept there for several hours until they have absorbed the desired amount of moisture.

Thereafter, they can be easily separated from excess water, for example by centrifugation.

Through the use of heat and/or pressure, this blending or bean "swelling" is promoted.

Thus, for example, if beans are soaked at temperatures of about 80 to 90°C, they will obtain the desired moisture content much more quickly.

Also, when exposed to steam at about 2 atmospheres, less time, usually about 1 to 30 minutes, is sufficient to reach the desired moisture content.

Once the beans have been swollen to a suitable moisture content, they are placed in a bath or stream of fatty material until the desired degree of decaffeination is obtained.

Here, the time of the mixture becomes important: the movement of caffeine from the beans is much slower than from a dilute solution.

Therefore, it is desirable to allow a time period of at least 30 minutes, and even longer for a complete degree of decaffeination, for this step.

In processes leading to a high degree of decaffeination, it is also important to ensure that the water content of the swollen beans does not decrease significantly during processing.

Contact between the swollen beans and the fatty material results in a lower water content due to loss of water from the beans to the fatty material.

If this reduction leads the beans to a moisture content below the preferred 40 to 60% range, a corresponding reduction in decaffeination efficiency occurs.

It is therefore preferred that the fatty substance used for decaffeination contains a small amount of water.

0.9 to 1.2 parts water, most preferably about 1.0 parts by weight of fatty material, is typically used in preferred embodiments of the invention.

This amount acts to balance the amount of water present in the beans and fatty material so that during contact there is no net transfer of water from the beans to the fat phase or vice versa.

On the other hand, it prevents excessive removal of water from the beans, and this on the other hand minimizes the total amount of water present during decaffeination, thereby avoiding undue loss of non-caffeinated, water-soluble bean components. Avoid.

Furthermore, apart from the single step contacting of the plant material and the fatty substance, the use of multiple steps can be carried out in the process described above.

Thus, co-current and more preferably counter-current extraction with fatty substances are desirable embodiments of the present invention.

One feature that makes decaffeination of swollen raw beans substantially the same as decaffeination of aqueous solutions containing caffeine is the effect of temperature on the efficiency of decaffeination.

As mentioned above, when decaffeination involves contacting a caffeinated aqueous solution with a fatty substance, differences in temperature during this contact do not have a significant effect on the efficiency of decaffeination.

However, when processing solid beans, increasing the temperature used for decaffeination dramatically increases the rate of decaffeination.

Therefore, to obtain the maximum efficiency of decaffeination, decaffeination of the beans is preferably carried out at the highest temperature practicable.

Deterioration of fatty substances typically occurs at or near temperatures of about 150°C, and therefore this temperature usually represents the maximum practical limit for decaffeination.

Also, extended contact times at very high temperatures result in some degradation of flavor components.

Therefore, the decaffeination of raw beans is about 50 to 120
Preferably it is carried out within the temperature range of .degree.

Another feature of the invention includes regenerating the caffeinated fatty material to permit its reuse during the decaffeination process.

This involves contacting the separated caffeinated fatty material with water, allowing movement of the caffeine into the aqueous phase, and then separating the fatty material and allowing its recirculation for further decaffeination. can be obtained most efficiently by

To a large extent, the regeneration step is the opposite of the above steps with respect to decaffeination.

However, in addition, this allows easy isolation of caffeine from the regenerated aqueous phase.

For the regeneration of fatty substances, the efficiency of caffeine removal in the aqueous phase is determined by the same parameters of temperature, the caffeine partition coefficient of the particular fatty substance and the fatty acidity of the water relative to the water as described above with respect to the separation of caffeine from aqueous solutions. It is further governed by the weight ratio of the materials.

Humidity is increased during regeneration to improve the efficiency of caffeine transfer to the aqueous phase since flavor deterioration is not a significant problem during regeneration since it is not present as a component of the final product.

(If, with increasing temperature, the concentration of caffeine in water increases even more rapidly than in fatty substances, then 1
It is advantageous to carry out the regeneration at temperatures up to 00° C. (and higher if pressure is used to avoid evaporation).

On the other hand, if lower temperatures favor this transfer,
These should then be used.

Also, since it is now desirable to transfer caffeine from fatty substances to the aqueous phase, the relatively large solubility of caffeine in water requires a low ratio of fatty substances to aqueous phase for virtually complete transfer. Permit use.

Furthermore, if it is desired to minimize the amount of water used for fatty material regeneration, a multi-step regeneration process involving co-current or counter-current extraction of fatty materials with water can be used to efficiently regenerate fatty materials. It can be used in the same way as already described above to allow for easy playback.

Concomitant with the regeneration of the fatty substances through the removal of caffeine in water, the liberated fatty substances may be removed by separation of these immiscible liquids through normally effective means such as centrifugation. Even when mixed, it can contain about 1 part by weight of water.

It is desirable that this water be removed from the fatty material before re-contacting it with the plant material to avoid dilution of the liquid plant material.

Removal of the water entrained in the fatty material is carried out by means such as flash distillation under vacuum conditions or equivalent known techniques.

As mentioned above, certain preferred embodiments of the present invention for the decaffeination of solid plant materials rely on the use of fatty materials containing small amounts of water.

In these example implementations, the dilution factor may be ignored.

The regenerated fatty material containing entrained water can therefore be further used directly for decaffeination.

Separately, its water content is adjusted, for example by adding water or partially stripping, to bring it to an optimum water content as required.

However, if the presence of water in the fatty material is desired, it is preferred to remove the entrained water and add the desired amount of water to the dry fatty material.

Continuation of this process ensures optimum water content and avoids the difficulties and/or hindrances necessary to monitor and, as desired, adjust the entrained water content of the regenerated fatty material. avoid.

The following examples are illustrative of the invention.

Percentages are by weight unless otherwise specified.

Example 1 An aqueous extract of roasted and ground coffee beans is stripped with steam to remove volatiles.

10 kg of the stripped extract are added at a soluble solids concentration of 19 cm and at a temperature of 22° C. to corn oil 179° C. at 60° C.

Stir the resulting mixture for 30 minutes, then 3.16 per minute.
Pass through centrifugation at the same rate.

The preparation separated from the oil by centrifugation has a decaffeination of about 51 parts.

By repeating the treatment of this preparation with additional corn oil, the degree of decaffeination is successively increased until essentially complete decaffeination has occurred.

Example 2 Tea extracts having a soluble solids concentration of 27.6% and a temperature of 22° C. are each mixed with corn oil in a volume ratio of 1:20 and stirring is continued for 10 minutes.

This mixture is then centrifuged to yield a tea extract exhibiting 63% decaffeination.

Further reprocessing provides a means to obtain decaffeination to any desired degree.

Example 3 Green coffee beans are decaffeinated using a recirculating aqueous medium that reaches an equilibrium soluble concentration of 29% and a temperature of 22°C.

Decaffeination is carried out by passing this aqueous medium in countercurrent through a column of green beans, so that essentially caffeine-free beans are removed from the column at one end and natural green beans are removed from the column at the other end. added.

in a circulating aqueous system and consisting of a column,
The aqueous medium is separated through a centrifuge in which oil at 50°C in a ratio of 21:1 to medium is added to the coffee for decaffeination from the aqueous extract.

Keep the temperatures of these two liquids essentially as directed using a heat exchanger in the system.

One pass of the medium and oil through centrifugation removes more than one-third of the caffeine in the medium.

A second pass of more equal parts of medium and oil is 60q! .

This increases the decaffeination of the medium.

After roasting, grinding and extracting the separated samples of decaffeinated beans obtained after the first and second passes, the aqueous extracts of both samples are essentially free of caffeine. becomes clear.

Example 4 Green coffee beans are exposed to steam at 110 DEG C. until they reach a moisture content of 45 parts by total weight and a 10 part portion is placed in a separate extraction chamber.

Each of the portions is decaffeinated at 95° C. for 4 hours using corn oil passed through this chamber at a rate of 1.1 kf 1 min.

In the first experiment "A", the oil is passed through only one chamber.

This is then regenerated by extraction with water to remove the caffeine content, the water is removed and this oil is then kept in a continuous flow of decaffeinated corn oil to the swollen beans in the chamber. Recirculate.

In the second experiment tt B pp, four chambers are connected in series so that corn oil flows through each.

Regeneration and recirculation of the oil takes place only after the oil has passed through all four chambers.

One chamber, the first in contact with the oil, is removed each time and a new chamber is added at the downstream end.

In this way, and after a start-up time of 6 hours, a system is obtained in which the four chambers contain beans of varying caffeine content by subjecting the beans to different continuations of oil slick caffeination on the stream.

The caffeine content of the beans from the experiment (Ajj and from the chambers that passed all four stages of the experiment tt B pp after start-up was analyzed.

Despite the fact that each of these beans was decaffeinated under essentially the same physical conditions, the extent of each decaffeination differs markedly.

Thus, while the beans of experiment at A n show 52% decaffeination, those of experiment (t B jl) show 92% decaffeination.

It is therefore clear that the back-step extraction substantially increases the efficiency of decaffeination.

Example 5 An aqueous extract of roasted and ground coffee beans is stripped with steam to remove volatiles.

Strip preparation 2001 with a soluble solids concentration of 18.4% was then mixed with safflower oil 2 to 7 and 20
Stir for 30 minutes at °C.

The mixture is then centrifuged to break the emulsion and the preparation is separated by decantation.

The isolated preparation exhibits decaffeination on the order of 56%.

Example 6 The process of Example 5 is repeated except substituting 2 kf of soybean oil in place of safflower oil.

After separation, this preparation shows approximately 56% decaffeination.

Example 7 The process of Example 5 is repeated except substituting 2 kf of peanut oil in place of safflower oil.

Additionally, this preparation and oil were heated to 10°C instead of 20°C throughout the process.
Keep at ℃.

The isolated preparation shows approximately 56% decaffeination.

Example 8 Green coffee beans are decaffeinated with coffee oil in a four-chamber countercurrent extraction zone in the manner described for experiment tt B pp in Example 4.

Each chamber or cell contains 6.8 units of beans by dry weight.

The oil was kept at 105°C for 6 hours (each cycle 1.
The extraction is carried out for a total extraction time of 5 hours).

A weight ratio of total oil to beans of 120:1 is used.

After each pass of the recirculating oil through all four chambers of the extraction zone, the oil is regenerated by aqueous extraction for caffeine and then stripped to remove its aqueous components.

A predetermined amount of water is mixed with the oil prior to oil recirculation.

Five different experiments are performed using the process described above.

These experiments differ essentially in the addition of varying amounts of water to the stripped, caffeine-free fatty material.

The data for the steady state conditions of each experimental run are as follows: This data shows that proper water content allows optimal decaffeination with minimal loss of non-caffeine solubles.

If the concentration of water present in the fatty material during decaffeination decreases, the efficiency of decaffeination also decreases.

Also, while the efficiency of decaffeination remains high at higher water contents relative to fatty materials, the high level of water present in this system results in increased loss of non-caffeinated solubles from the beans. is shown.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. Contacting a caffeine-containing plant material with a liquid, water-immiscible fatty substance for a period of time sufficient to transfer caffeine from said plant material to said fatty substance. 1. A method for producing decaffeinated plant material, characterized by maintaining contact between the plant material and the decaffeinated plant material, and separating the produced caffeine-containing fatty substances from the decaffeinated plant material.