Decaffeinated coffee deserves clear information about how it is made. A reference to a solvent once used in paint removers can sound alarming, but it cannot, by itself, establish the risk from a finished cup. The useful questions are which process was used, what residue remains, and what evidence supports the claims on the packet.
The 10 ppm limit is documented
Methylene chloride is one solvent used to extract caffeine from green coffee beans. In the United States, 21 CFR 173.255(c) permits residues up to 10 parts per million, or 0.001 percent, in decaffeinated roasted coffee and decaffeinated soluble coffee extract.
That is a regulatory maximum for those products, not a measurement of every brand or a concentration that can simply be assigned to a brewed cup. Establishing a particular product’s residue level requires testing. The existence of the limit also does not settle every question about whether the regulation should change.
Why an industrial restriction is not a coffee ban
The US Environmental Protection Agency’s methylene chloride rules address serious risks in industrial, commercial and consumer uses covered by the Toxic Substances Control Act. Its compliance guide explicitly distinguishes food and food-additive uses excluded from that law’s definition of a chemical substance.
