New Scientist - Naturally decaffeinated coffee plant discovered: "A naturally decaffeinated coffee plant has been discovered. Coffee from the new strain could be tastier than existing decaf brews, which can lose flavour compounds when caffeine is extracted with solvents.
Other caffeine-free plants have been reported, but the latest comes from the same genetic stock as today?s elite commercial strains. This means the decaffeinated trait should be relatively easy to breed into popular types of coffee.
?This is the first report of a decaffeinated variety of Coffea arabica,? says Paulo Mazzafera, head of the team at the University of Campinas, Brazil, which isolated the strains. ?This species is the most cultivated species in the world, responsible for more than 75 per cent of traded coffee,? he says"