Decaffeinated Colombian El Carmen
Decaffeinated Colombian El Carmen Filter Roast
We just love this decaf, in our opinion El Carmen is still up there with the best. Ethyl Acetate Decaffeinated coffee is a revolution in its own right. Over the years, we have seen a number of different processes and decaffeinated coffee quality has improved. We try to keep El Carmen here all through the year .To get a coffee of this clarity and sweet acidity is a rarity to have as a filter roast. You really have to look for evidence of decaffeination in the cup.
This a clean cup without a trace of processing. More on that below!
Top Trumps
Producer Group: El Carmen de Acevedo
Region: Pitalito, Huila
Country: Colombia
Altitude: 1400-2100 MASL (there’s a variation in altitude if I ever saw one)
Varietals; Castillo and Caturra.
Process: Ethyl acetate decaffeination.
Roast: Filter
Cup Potential:🥣
In the cup, there is intense front-end sweetness with a fresh apple acidity, white fruit sugars (think lychee), then yellow sugars (golden syrup), and soft subtle sweet citrus making it almost like lemon curd. The Nougat factor comes into play when you add milk and the sugars take on a toffee-like dimension.
Recipe: 60g per litre is a great place to start.
Coffee background
This coffee is a blend comprised of a group of small producers, who are working under a sustainability program. This system takes the risk out of the lows of the market and ensures enough is paid to the producer. Over the last 5 years, this has consistently doubled the income of the smallholder farmer families working with the project. The goal is to achieve stable and sustainable prices for community coffee lots through improved quality control, shared knowledge, and a connection to the specialty coffee market. Raw built drying bed facilities and QC infrastructure at the community central hub in the town of El Carmen.
The Decaf bit
Green coffee from Red Association is taken to Decscafecol, a decaffeination plant in Manizales. Using volcanic spring water and the organic compound ethyl acetate, which is derived from fermenting sugar cane, locally produced in Valle de Cauca. The green coffee is steamed to make it more porous, to help with absorption. As the beans swell, the process of separation begins. The coffee is then placed in a solution of ethyl acetate, several times until 97% of the caffeine in the coffee has been removed. The final stages are to steam clean, removing all of the remaining organic compounds. This decaffeinated coffee has something in the region of 30 parts of caffeine per million, which is a fraction of what you would find in a banana.
Sourced with Raw These guys are a not-for-profit, social enterprise with deep roots in coffee.
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