Colombia - Decaf de Caña - EA Hulia

This coffee is grown in the Huila region which is located in southwestern Colombia, nestled in-between the Central and Eastern ranges of the Andes. The variation in elevation results in Huila being one of the country's most unique and complex regions of coffee production. Its terroir, climate, and harvest cycles all contribute to the quality of coffee produced here. This coffee is washed and then subsequently decaffeinated.

At present, there is no such thing as a genetically decaffeinated coffee, which means that decaf coffee needs to be created by physically removing the caffeine from green coffee beans. Most of today’s decaf processing methods are sophisticated and thorough and can remove 99 percent of the caffeine naturally present in coffee.

Coffees of any process (washed, natural, honey, etc) can also be processed for decaffeination. The decaffeination itself takes place after the coffee has been harvested, processed, and had its parchment layer removed. Most of the time, coffees need to be sent to specific facilities to be decaffeinated, rather than having the caffeine removed at the mill level.

There are a variety of decaffeination methods, this coffee is processed using Ethyl Acetate. This naturally occurring ester (present in bananas as well as a by-product of fermented sugars) can be isolated and used as a solvent to bond with and remove caffeine from green coffee. First, the coffee is sorted and steamed for 30 minutes under low pressure in order to open the coffee seeds’ pores and prepare them for decaffeination. The coffee is placed in a solution of both water and ethyl acetate, where the EA will begin to bond with the salts of chlorogenic acids inside the seeds. The tank will be drained and re-filled over the course of eight hours until the caffeine is no longer detected.The seeds are steamed once more to remove the ethyl acetate traces. The coffee is then dried and polished for export.