If you’re as sensitive to caffeine as I am, even a small cup of tea before bed can have you tossing and turning all night. Many of the decaf tea options from the grocery are no good in my book because they use harsh chemicals during the decaffeination process. The most natural methods of decaffeination are Swiss Water and CO2 with the CO2 method being much more common. Unfortunately, the decaffeination method used is not required to be listed on product packaging in most countries including the US so you’re mostly in the dark when shopping to find naturally decaffeinated tea. I’ve dug through many brands sites and emailed countless others to find the brands and specific products that do use natural decaffeination techniques.
Naturally decaffeinated green tea is more common than black or white. Even some big manufacturers like Bigelow have begun to use CO2 decaffeination for their green teas.
There is only one water processed decaf tea brand on this list. Water processing is the preferred method for decaffeinating coffee naturally but the method doesn’t work as well for tea which is much more delicate than coffee–especially for the higher end loose leaf tea blends most of these brands sell. Water processed decaf tea is known to destroy a lot of the flavor in the tea and is commonly thought to taste “watered down.”
Naturally Decaffeinated Tea Brands
Harney & Sons
Natural products: All loose leaf teas
Decaffeination method: Carbon Dioxide for loose leaf teas; Ethyl acetate for teabags
The Carbon Dioxide (CO2) Tea Decaffeination Method, is how we decaffeinate our loose teas… Ethyl acetate is used to decaffeinate the tea found in our teabags.
https://www.harney.com/blogs/news/tea-decaffeination-process
English Tea Store
Natural products: All teas labeled with the “English Tea Store” brand.
Decaffeination method: Carbon Dioxide
At English Tea Store, our exclusive in-house brands use a CO2 process at the green leaf stage without the use of chemicals
https://www.englishteastore.com/loose-leaf-co2-decaf.html
Fortnum and Mason
Natural products: All teas
Decaffeination method: Carbon Dioxide
We use the CO2 method as the decaffeination method for our teas.
https://support.fortnumandmason.com/hc/en-gb/articles/360005629917-What-decaffeination-method-do-you-use-for-your-teas-
Davidson’s Tea
Natural products: All teas
Decaffeination method: Carbon Dioxide
Davidson’s teas are decaffeinated under the CO2 extraction process
https://www.davidsonstea.com/faqs.aspx
The Republic of Tea
Natural products: All teas
Decaffeination method: Carbon Dioxide
The Republic of Tea uses a natural CO2 high-pressure extraction process employing carbon dioxide
https://the.republicoftea.com/tea-library/caffeine-in-tea/tea-and-caffeine/
Tea Forte
Natural products: Black breakfast blend
Decaffeination method: Carbon Dioxide
It’s unclear if all decaf Tea Forte teas use the CO2 process but the black breakfast blend definitely does.
Stash Tea
Natural products: All teas
Decaffeination method: Unclear
All of Stash Tea’s decaffeinated products call the process “naturally decaffeinated” but don’t mention the actual method used. Only the Early Grey product claims to use a “European process” which isn’t standard terminology from my research. I’m not quite sure what this method is but I’d imagine it is some variation of CO2 processing.
Celestial Seasonings
Natural products: All teas
Decaffeination method: Carbon Dioxide
Celestial Seasonings decaf teas are naturally decaffeinated using nontoxic carbon dioxide (CO2)
https://celestialseasonings.com/blogs/types/decaffeinated-tea
Yogi
Natural products: All teas
Decaffeination method: Carbon Dioxide
The decaffeinated Green Tea leaf used in our teas is decaffeinated using an all-natural, non-toxic chemical process called Supercritical Carbon Dioxide (or CO2 processing).
https://yogiproducts.com/faq/
Taylors of Harrogate
Natural products: Decaffeinated Breakfast blend
Decaffeination method: Carbon Dioxide
Bigelow
Natural products: Green teas only
Decaffeination method: Carbon Dioxide for green teas; Ethyl acetate for everything else
For our Green Teas, we use a carbon dioxide process.
https://www.bigelowtea.com/Special-Pages/Customer-Service/FAQs/Nutritional-and-Dietary-Information/Which-method-do-you-use-to-decaffeinate-your-teas
Clipper Teas
Natural products: All teas
Decaffeination method: Carbon Dioxide
Our decaf process uses carbon dioxide
https://www.clipper-teas.us/tea-talk/decaffeination-the-organic-way/
Upton Tea Imports
Natural products: Most teas (see below)
Decaffeination method: Carbon Dioxide
Most decaffeinated Upton Teas use a CO2 decaffeination process but I could not find any language on the site confirming that they only sell tea decaffeinated by this method.
Arbor Teas
Natural products: All teas
Decaffeination method: Carbon Dioxide
Arbor Teas uses the carbon dioxide (CO2) method for all of its organic decaffeinated teas.
https://www.arborteas.com/tea-caffeine/
Reading Coffee
Natural products: Decaf Earl Grey
Decaffeination method: Carbon Dioxide
Reading Coffee currently sells two decaffeinated teas: an Earl Grey and a Vanilla flavored black tea. Only the Early Grey mentions using the CO2 method.
Tea Leaves
Natural products: All teas
Decaffeination method: Carbon Dioxide
We use a special decaffeination method for our teas, known as Supercritical CO2 Processing
https://www.tealeaves.com/blogs/explore-our-teas/decaffeination
Liverpool Tea Warehouse
Natural products: All teas
Decaffeination method: Carbon Dioxide
All three of the decaffeinated teas Liverpool Tea Warehouse currently sells (Assam, Ceylon OP and English Breakfast) are decaffeinated using the CO2 process.
Joe’s Tea Company
Natural products: Ever-So-English
Decaffeination method: Carbon Dioxide
Joe’s Tea Company’s only decaffeinated tea Ever-So-English is decaffeinated by the CO2 method.
Ever-So-English Decaf is gently decaffeinated with CO2
https://joesteacompany.com/faq/
Brew Tea Company
Natural products: Decaffeinated Ceylon
Decaffeination method: Carbon Dioxide
By sticking with a gentler process and using a super flavoursome, whole leaf Ceylon, we’ve created CO2 Decaffeinated
https://www.brewteacompany.co.uk/blogs/tea-info/how-is-tea-decaffeinated
Good Life Tea
Natural products: All teas
Decaffeination method: Carbon Dioxide
The best method for decaffeinating teas is the CO2 method. This is the only method which we use at Good Life Tea.
https://www.goodlifetea.com/blogs/news/learn-how-tea-is-decaffeinated
Metro Tea
Natural products: All teas
Decaffeination method: Carbon Dioxide
Our chemical-free CO2 process naturally flushes caffeine from the luxury grade tea leaves
https://www.metrotea.com/products/luxurious-tea-and-herbs/bulk-tea-bags-pyramid/c02-decaf-pyramid-teabags/
Farrer’s
Natural products: Ceylon and Fannings
Decaffeination method: Carbon Dioxide
Perennial Tea Room
Natural products: All teas
Decaffeination method: Swiss water process for the Earl grey and Carbon Dioxide for the rest
Perennial stands out for being the only brand on the list selling a Swiss water decaf tea. The rest of their decaffeinated teas are CO2 processed.
How is tea decaffeinated?
Ethyl Acetate
Ethyl acetate is a naturally occurring compound created from the fermentation of sugarcane. Although this technically makes it “natural,” for efficiency the ethyl acetate used commercially for decaffeination is entirely synthetic. Some people are concerned because ethyl acetate is also commonly used as industrial solvent and is even found in nail polish remover– not something you’d like to find in your morning tea or coffee!
The process involves soaking the leaves in ethyl acetate for about 24 hours to allow the caffeine molecules time to bond with the ethyl acetate. It’s the most common decaffeination method for both tea and coffee because it’s cheaper than water or CO2 processing at a mass scale.
Water processed
Water processing using the Swiss method is almost never used for tea. The method involves soaking the tea (or more commonly coffee) in hot water. Caffeine is soluble in water and will be stripped away from the tea with time. However, many of the important particles that give tea flavor and aroma are also water soluble and will also be stripped from the tea. The solution is to filter the water through a carbon block filter to create an flavor and aroma rich extract which is added to the next batch to preserve the flavor.
Swiss water processing is the most effective method for decaffeinating coffee and is preferred for being entirely chemical free. However, tea is too delicate to withstand hot water and degrades during the process. The Swiss water method virtually unused by tea manufacturers.
Carbon Dioxide
The gold standard of tea decaffeination techniques. It preserves the most flavor of any method while only using Carbon Dioxide, a naturally occurring molecule in the air you breathe. The process works a lot like the water processing method except using compressed CO2 as the soaking solution instead of water. Compressed CO2 is in a gaseous state and therefore less harsh on the tea leaves.
