Cordillera

Meet CORDILLERA DECAF, a sugarcane decaffeinated blend of caturra & castillo, produced by various smallholder producers near DESCAFECOL at 1500-1900masl in Planadas & Canon de las Hermosas, Colombia

Expect to taste: marmalade, dried apricots, milk chocolate, nectarine, caramel, shortbread & sugarcane

TL;DR: the best decaf you never wanted to drink, but we will keep buying it from a good source and roasting it with as much care as all of our other coffees.

This stunning decaf is sourced from a wide range of smallholder producers in the Planadas and Canon de las Hermosas regions of Colombia. Lots from individual growers are selected to ensure that this decaf stands on its own as a fantastic coffee.

Once the individual lots are selected they are blended, milled and then transported to DESCAFECOL where they undergo decaffeination via the "sugarcane/EA/Ethyl Acetate" process. This involves giving the coffee a good steam before plunging it into a bath of Ethyl Acetate and water.

Something to note, Ethyl Acetate might sound scary and like something you don't want near your coffee, but you can sleep well (get it?) knowing that it's a naturally derived solvent that comes from fermenting sugarcane.

We'll save you the chemistry lesson, but suffice to say that after an EA bath and a fresh water rinse cycle, the coffee is ready to be steamed one last time to remove the last of the EA, then dried and prepared for export.

The result is a sweet and juicy coffee, that maintains more of its original flavour, as well as some additional sweetness. It's a fantastic way to allow producers to sell more of their coffee, and it honestly tastes fantastic - not like the decaf we've been forced to drink for years!

We start with the same recipe for all of our espresso coffees:

From here we will tweak things to get the flavours to highlight things we like. Use this as your starting point and go wild!

Note: some domestic espresso machines can’t use a 20g dose. Please always follow your manufacturers instructions to avoid damaging your equipment.