Decaffeination is the removal of
caffeine from
coffee beans,
cocoa,
tea leaves and other caffeine-containing materials. While
soft drinks which do not use caffeine as an ingredient are sometimes described as "decaffeinated", they are better termed "non-caffeinated" because decaffeinated implies that there was caffeine present at one point in time. Decaffeinated drinks contain typically 1–2% of the original caffeine content, and sometimes as much as 20%. Decaffeinated products are commonly termed
decaf.