Colombia – Decaf De Cana– EA Decaffeination
COLOMBIA - DECAF DE CANA - EA DECAFFEINATION
COUNTRY
Coffee came to Colombia in the late 1700s by way of Jesuit priests who were among the Spanish colonists. The first plantings were in the north of the country; in the Santander and Boyaca departments. Throughout the 19th century, coffee plants spread through the country with a smaller average farm size than more commonly found throughout other Latin American producing countries.Commercial production and export of coffee started in the first decade of the 1800s, but remained somewhat limited until the 20th century: The 1927 establishment of the Federación Nacional de Cafeteros de Colombia was a tremendous boost to the national coffee industry, and Colombia quickly established itself as a major coffee-growing region, vying with Brazil and Vietnam for the title of top global producer. Colombia still produces exclusively Arabica coffee, and though the country suffered setbacks and lower yields from an outbreak of coffee-leaf rust in the early 2010s, production has fairly bounced back thanks to the development and spread of disease-resistant plants, as well as aggressive treatment and preventative techniques. Colombia’s size alone certainly contributes to the different profile that its 20 coffee-growing departments (out of a total 32) express in the cup, but even within growing regions there are plentiful variations due to the microclimates created by mountainous terrain, wind patterns, proximity to the Equator, and, of course, differences in
varieties and processing techniques. The country’s northern regions (e.g. Santa Marta and Santander) with their higher temperatures and lower altitudes, ofer full-bodied coffees with less brightness and snap; the central “coffee belt” of Antioquia, Caldas, and Quindio among others, where the bulk of the country’s production lies, produce those easy-drinking “breakfast blend” types, with soft nuttiness and big sweetness but low acidity. The southwestern departments of Nariño, Cauca, and Huila tend to have higher altitude farms, which comes through in more complex acidity and heightened florality in the profiles.
THIS COFFEE
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 cofee 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 seeds. Most of today’s decaf processing methods are sophisticated and thorough and can remove 99 percent of the cafeine naturally present in cofee. Coffee’s 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 cofee 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, though EA is only harmful to humans in very high quantities (400 parts per million or more). The coffee is then dried and polished for export.
Finca Filadelfa is the name of the original Dalton family farm - the first coffee farm in
TASTES LIKE:
Chocolate, Orange, Malt