The first commercial decaffeination process relied on benzene, the highly carcinogenic crude-oil derived hydrocarbon that is a critical component in gasoline, styrene foam, and as a precursor to nylon production. In 1903 German coffee merchant and inventor Ludwig Roselius developed the world’s first commercially viable coffee decaffeination process. He involved steaming green coffee beans with acidified water and then washing them with a solvent solution of benzene to remove the caffeine from the beans before the roasting process.