Satiate my curiosity, please. I know caffeine is naturally occurring in many plants (coffee and tea being the most notable). But for things like energy drinks, soda, drink flavorings, and whatnot that we add caffeine to, where does it come from?
Do we synthesize it all , is it recovered from the decaffeination process we use for decaf coffee/tea? Something else?
That makes sense to me and is what I was thinking when I had this thought at the grocery store earlier. Then I wasn’t sure since so many things have caffeine in them these days – would the byproduct caffeine be enough? Another person said it’s synthesized on an industrial scale, and that also makes sense, at least enough to satisfy my curiosity.