Most people searching for Taylors decaf coffee already know the brand. The question they’ve moved on to is whether it’s actually any good, which the brand pages and supermarket listings that dominate the search results can’t answer with any independence.
Here is the independent answer. Taylors of Harrogate makes the most accessible decent decaf in the UK. The Decaffé is consistent, widely stocked, properly decaffeinated without chemical solvents, and priced where ordinary supermarket shoppers will actually buy it. Rich Italian Decaf covers the espresso-friendly use case in the same range. Neither is specialty. Both sit well above own-label.
What follows is the long version, product by product, with brewing guidance and where each one fits.
About Taylors of Harrogate
Yorkshire roaster since 1886, founded as C.E. Taylor & Co. in Leeds. Acquired by Bettys in 1962 and family-owned through the Bettys & Taylors Group ever since. Not a specialty roaster. Mainstream premium, sold through every major UK supermarket and online retailer.
The credentials worth knowing: Rainforest Alliance certified across the core range, including all decaf products. CarbonNeutral product status achieved well ahead of their 2020 target, certified cradle-to-customer by Climate Impact Partners, supporting the planting of 1.5 million trees with 6,500 farmers. UN Global Climate Action Award in 2021 for the carbon programme.
This is a mainstream brand that has done the unsexy certification and emissions work properly. Not a craft operator scaling up. Not a specialty roaster with a supermarket distribution deal. The supermarket aisle, done well.
The Taylors decaf range at a glance
| Product | Format | Sizes | Approx. price | Where to buy |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Taylors Decaffé | Ground | 200g, 6×200g | £3.50–£5.45 (200g), around £18 (6-pack) | Tesco, Waitrose, Asda, Sainsbury’s, Morrisons, Amazon |
| Taylors Decaffé | Whole bean | 200g, 1KG, 2×1KG | Around £18–£22 (1KG) | Amazon, Coffee Supplies Direct |
| Taylors Decaffé | Coffee bags | 10-bag, 80-bag | Around £3 (10), £8 (80) | Tesco, Waitrose, Asda, Kingdom Coffee, Ryman, Amazon |
| Rich Italian Decaf | Ground | 200g | £3–£4 | Sainsbury’s, Tesco, online retailers |
Four products. Three are the Decaffé blend in different formats. The fourth, Rich Italian Decaf, is a separate blend with a different origin and a darker roast. The 80-bag box is sold into the office and catering market, which is why it lands in business-supply retailers like Ryman alongside the supermarkets.
Decaffé Ground Coffee: tasting notes and verdict
The flagship. 100% Arabica from Central America and Brazil, decaffeinated in Mexico using the Pure Water Process. Medium roast, what Taylors call Roast 4. Brand tasting notes: smooth caramel and malt. Won a Great Taste Award in 2021.
In the cup, as billed. Caramel-leaning, malty body, no sour notes, no chemical edge. The flavour profile points at cafetière, French press and filter, where the longer extraction lets the caramel and malt sit on the palate. It will pull a perfectly drinkable espresso, but the medium roast and flavour set aren’t built for pressure extraction. If espresso is your daily, Rich Italian Decaf is the right pick within the range.
Independent assessments land in roughly the same place. Decadent Decaf, who compete in the same market, commended Taylors for “expanding the reach of better quality decaf coffee into the supermarkets” while noting they would not drink it “with a huge amount of enthusiasm.” Above own-label, below specialty single-origin, consistent year after year.
Buy this one if you want a reliable everyday decaf for filter or cafetière at a sensible supermarket price. Skip it if you’ve moved on to traceable single-origin specialty roasters.
Decaffé Whole Beans: for those who grind at home
Same blend, two bag sizes. The 200g pack and the 1KG bag both sit on the Amazon catalogue, with the 1KG being the more useful SKU for anyone with a home grinder. Coffee Supplies Direct stocks it for the catering market.
The cost case isn’t strong. The 1KG works out around £2 per 100g. The 200g ground at supermarket prices comes in between £1.75 and £2.73 per 100g. The argument for beans is freshness. Grinding to order preserves volatile aromatics that pre-ground packs slowly release through the foil seal over time, even before the bag is opened.
If you already grind, the bean version is the obvious upgrade with no real downside. If you don’t grind, there’s no reason to start for this coffee specifically.
No independent reviews of the bean version exist. The blend is identical to the ground, so taste-note parity is a reasonable assumption, with the freshness uplift on top.
Decaffé Coffee Bags: convenience or compromise?
Eighty individually wrapped filter bags per catering box, with a smaller ten-bag retail pack also available. The format is filter coffee in a teabag-style sachet. Drop one in a mug, add water just off the boil, leave for two minutes, squeeze and remove.
The squeeze step matters. Skipping it produces a weak cup. Corner Coffee Store ranked the Decaffé coffee bags sixth of ten UK decafs and flagged a practical gotcha: the bags can split if you pour boiling water directly onto them. Pour to the side of the mug and the problem disappears.
In the cup, expect a noticeable step down from cafetière and a meaningful step up from instant. Clarkey Cafe gave the bags 7/10 in a 2019 review and said the difference between the regular and decaf versions was hard to spot. The flavour profile holds: caramel, malt, light cocoa, low acidity.
The right product for offices, hotel rooms, train tables, and anywhere a French press isn’t to hand. Not the right call if you have a grinder and a cafetière in the same room.
Rich Italian Decaf: a darker alternative
The other product in the range, and a different proposition. Single-origin Central American beans, sourced and decaffeinated in the same country using the same Pure Water Process. A darker, more robust roast than the Decaffé, billed as rich with chocolate and almond character in the caffeinated equivalent.
Taylors hasn’t published a Roast number for this product in publicly accessible sources, so the darker-than-Decaffé claim rests on the brand’s positioning rather than a confirmed scale. Independent reviews exist mostly of the regular caffeinated version, which makes specifics on the decaf harder to verify.
The use case is clear even with sparse copy. Rich Italian Decaf is built for espresso and moka, where pressure extraction wants a darker bean and a robust profile. Decaffé is built for filter and cafetière, where caramel and malt fit better. Pick by brewing method.
Less ubiquitous than the Decaffé. Stocked at Sainsbury’s and Tesco, plus online retailers. Not in every supermarket aisle.
How Taylors decaffeinate their coffee
Taylors uses what they call the Pure Water Process. The Decaffé is decaffeinated in Mexico, the Rich Italian Decaf in Central America. No methylene chloride, no ethyl acetate, no organic solvents at any stage.
The mechanism is straightforward. Green coffee beans are introduced to water already saturated with the soluble flavour compounds found in coffee. Because the water is pre-charged with everything the beans contain except caffeine, only caffeine diffuses out of the bean into the solution. The caffeine-loaded water is then passed through activated carbon, which binds the caffeine. The cleaned solution cycles back to extract caffeine from the next batch.
This is the same category of method as the Swiss Water Process. Swiss Water is the trademarked, branded version, run from a plant in British Columbia. Taylors run their equivalent under their own name in their own facilities. The underlying chemistry is shared: a saturated water bath that selectively removes caffeine, then activated carbon filtration.
Why it matters in the cup: solvent-based methods can strip flavour compounds alongside caffeine, which is why solvent decaf can taste thin or carry a slight chemical edge. Water-based methods preserve more of the bean’s original character. The 2021 Great Taste Award the Decaffé picked up is a useful piece of evidence that the method delivers in practice.
The Decaffeinate verdict
Taylors of Harrogate makes the most accessible decent decaf in the UK. The Decaffé is consistent, widely stocked, water-decaffeinated, Rainforest Alliance certified, CarbonNeutral certified, and priced where ordinary supermarket shoppers actually buy it. Rich Italian Decaf covers the darker, espresso-friendly use case in the same range.
Buy Taylors if you want reliable everyday decaf without spending time researching alternatives. If you buy your coffee in supermarkets and want something better than own-label without paying specialty prices, this is the answer.
Skip it if you want traceable single-origin micro-lots, unusual processing (natural, honey, anaerobic), or roasters who can tell you the farm. For those, browse the directory for UK specialty roasters who decaffeinate at specialty scale. Apostle, Bad Hand, Artisan Roast, The Studio and others mostly run Swiss Water on quality green beans. Pricing sits higher. The rotation is faster. The cup is more interesting.
Taylors is the supermarket aisle done well. Worth knowing where that ceiling is, and worth knowing what sits above it.