Can decaf coffee be addictive? It is evident that decaffeinated coffee still contains a very low amount of caffeine.

What I'm interested in is that if decaf coffee still contains some very low amounts of caffeine, and caffeine is addictive, therefore: is decaf coffee addictive?


★ I'm not talking about the 'habitual' dependence. I.e. the routine of drinking the same cup of decaf coffee everyday, but rather the 'physical' or chemical dependence.
Since decaf coffee isn't the same as caffeine-free coffee, the key point regarding addiction is the amount of daily servings of decaf coffee that deliver the 100 milligrams of caffeine needed to acquire some sort of dependence 1.

The amount of such cups of decaf will vary according to the brand chosen. According to a study published in the Journal of Analytical Toxicology, and cited in the article Decaf coffee isn't caffeine free, they say that in average, a cup of decaf can hold about one-twentieth of the caffeine you get in a normal drip brewed coffee.

In that same article, they state that drinking more cups of decaf can compensate the lack of caffeine, and still be able to produce addiction.

So, it is indeed a matter of how many cups of decaf you drink.