Decaf

The blend is comprised of coffees grown by producers in Santuario, El Aguila and Pereira, and is brought together in Santuario, where the coffee from each region is blended and prepared for milling.

A regional blend such as this means that Raw Material are able to maximise the impact for producers that contribute to it by bringing much larger volumes of their coffee to the speciality market.

The blended coffee is then sent to Descafecol in Manizales for decaffeination by way of the Sugar Cane EA Process. This involves placing the coffee in a solution of water from the nearby Nevado Del Ruis, and ethyl acetate, an organically existing compound, in this instance derived through the fermentation of sugar cane.

This process begins by steaming the coffee, increasing its porosity, and beginning the hydrolysis of caffeine which is usually bonded to salts and chlorogenic acid in the bean.

The beans are then submerged in the ethyl acetate solvent, until 97% of the caffeine is removed. A final steam is then used to lift residual traces of the compound.

Aside from resulting in the tastiest decaf coffee we have tried to date, this process also keeps the carbon footprint to a minimum, with the solvent being derived from the domestic sugar cane industry, and the process occurring within Colombia (as opposed to Europe or North America), which also benefits the domestic economy.