Colombia Sugar Cane Specialty Decaf

Tasting notes: Brown sugar, Sugar cane, Chocolate, Profile: Full body, Low acidity

Know where your coffee comes from

Founded in 1960, the Caldas cooperative is home for over 3,600 allied partner producers, mostly small family farms. Operating across eleven municipalities in Manzanares and Marquetalia, it has 15 sales points and centers of 'atención al productor'. Here, producers drop off and sell their coffee, receiving vital agricultural support and guidance from cooperative agronomists working with the cooperative. Caldas is historically known as the center of coffee production in Colombia, and used to be the biggest producer of coffee by volume, although today that title belongs to the department of Huila. Today, Caldas has 63,051 hectares of coffee plantations, with 95% of producers cultivating on less than five hectares. It's home to 13,000 specialty coffee growers and around 41,000 small farms.

Sugar cane decaffeination

Sugar cane decaffeination utilizes the naturally occurring compound ethyl acetate (EA), extracted from distilled sugar cane, to extract caffeine from coffee. The EA process is relatively simple:

• First the beans are steamed to open their pores.

• Then a mix of water, acetic acid (vinegar) and EA is circulated.

• The EA binds with the caffeine in the bean and extracts the caffeine while leaving most of the other flavor compounds.

• After the desired caffeine level is reached, the EA residue on the beans is removed by rinsing and the beans are dried until 10-12% humidity remains. 

How it’s roasted

We roasted this Colombian sugar cane decaffeinated coffee for espresso.

You can expect:

• A pleasant full body

• Low acidity

• Notes of chocolate and sweet sugar cane

This decaffeinated offering from OR Coffee Roasters sources from the Caldas cooperative in Colombia's Caldas region. The coffee employs sugar cane decaffeination, a method that uses sugarcane molasses byproducts to remove caffeine while preserving flavor compounds—a technique particularly suited to maintaining sweetness and body in decaffeinated coffees.

The roaster identifies brown sugar, sugar cane, and chocolate in the cup, suggesting the decaffeination process and origin have aligned to highlight the coffee's inherent sweetness rather than mask it. Decaffeinated coffees often challenge the notion that removing caffeine requires sacrificing complexity, and this lot's flavor profile indicates a successful balance between the processing method and the producer's work in Caldas.