[Dantilla]

A friend has a couple local coffee shops with their own roaster. Their de-caff is quite good.

I asked him once why Starbucks de-caff is so horrid, yet his is almost indistinguishable from regular house blend.

Starbucks uses the water extraction method, which destroys flavor along with the caffiene.
He will only use the chemical method, to keep the quality up.

It's a marketing thing. Sounds good to say "we use water" instead of chemicals, but the end product is inferior.