Decaf - Colombia | Cauca | Sugar Cane Process
Colombia and decaf - two words together we can get used to!
This Cauca department stretches from the East coast of Colombia up into the highlands of the Andes until it reaches the border of Huila, another well-known coffee growing region we have sourced from many times. The high altitude combined with volcanic nutrient-rich soil in Cauca lends itself to bright vibrant coffees and the ethyl acetate process is known to highlight these qualities.
This coffee is another addition to our By Sail collection: innovated by Belco in France, this is a solution to sharply reduce transport emissions: sending coffee containers to Europe on specially designed ships powered by sails instead of oil.
Ethyl acetate is a solvent naturally found in several fruits and derived from fermented sugar and thus it is traditionally considered a relatively 'natural' decaffeination technique. The decaf process takes place in Colombia and involves soaking coffee in water and ethyl acetate. The ethyl acetate bonds to the salts of chlorogenic acid in the coffee, thus extracting the caffeine. The coffee is then removed from its bath and steamed to remove any remaining ethyl acetate.
This coffee is exported by Racafe in Colombia, the same team who recently brought us Vianí! They have been exporting Colombian coffee for 70 years and they recently moved to try to incentivise and showcase the sustainability efforts of their farmers by setting up an internal standard for sustainability called Crecer. All the coffee they supply us is from farmers meeting this standard. The project is funded by a premium added to the price of the beans which is then exclusively used to help fund sustainability practices on these farms: environmental, social and economic. This standard covers a really large breadth of areas including biodiversity, soil, pesticides, waste water, fermentation, drying, food security and working conditions. A worthy addition to our offering as we continue down our B Corp path!
