This is a custom decaf lot we sent of the Fazenda Joao de Campos we offer as a regular (non-decaf) lot. The farm is in a region called Alto Paranaíba near Serra do Salitre. It is a high plain in Cerrado Miniero, Minas Gerais state. At 1200 meters, the Serra do Salitre has better altitude than most of Cerrado proper, which averages 800-900 meters for coffee production. This is from a larger farm, no Micro Lot coffee this one. But it is much smaller than the neighboring Fazenda Aurea. Brazil coffee like this should be less expensive than other origins, because these coffees from Cerrado are mechanically harvested, and prepared for export en masse. Done well, mechanical harvesting is brilliant. But how many areas have the flat topography for this technique? Very few. This decaf lot is quite consistent with the non-decaf lot: We like this coffee for it's consistency and as a blend base or as a straight Single Origin farm level offering. It works very well for decaf or low-caf espresso. The decaf is a little different from the non decaf, perhaps a little more fruit accent in the cup. It can be roasted lighter (City+) for straight brewed coffee, but I like it best at FC to FC+ for brewed use, blend, and espresso. The dry fragrance has a lot of roast notes to it; both sweet-savory aspects and an interesting fruit-nut-chocolate compound scent. At City roast the aromas are malty sweet and lightly fruited, with a hazelnut note, but at FC+ they are much more aggressive and potent, with bittersweet chocolate tangy scents. Full City has the best cup, a nice balance between caramel and chocolate roast notes. The acidity is very muted, and the body thick, buttery, dense. Darker roasts are a natural for espresso base, and it would blend well with both brighter coffees, or fruity Decaf dry-process types from Ethiopia. It's a very versatile lot...

It seems inevitable that a name we put on a coffee is going to be this complicated; why not just make up fanciful names like Abyssinia Delight or African Trader or ... well, I would rather just stick to the facts, and in this case the facts are: Dry-processed coffee from the Sidamo region, processed for decaf using the MC Decaf method. Now that's confusing. This is still very much a Sidamo and that's the beauty of this coffee. MC decaf is the traditional decaf process, and at one time there was only that and Swiss Water available for specialty grade coffees. The MC process has improved (done best by KVW as well as Coffein, both in Germany). The secret is the coffee sent to the decaffeination plant is really, really good lots of green coffee, and not whatever doesn't sell or whatever the plant has lying around. That's the old way of thinking in decafs: they have usually been the lowest priced green lots, or the overstock. So here we started with an exceptional lot of Ogsaddey Dry-process Sidamo, a bright, fruited cup, highly aromatic. And we end up with something that can be described exactly the same way. This decaf Sidamo has all the top-end bright notes and floral-fruit flavors endemic to a really good Sidamo. It has medium body, nice aromatics of fruit, wild-honeyed roast tastes, with a long finish. There are orangey citric notes, and a bit of syrup in the finish. If I cupped this blind I would not suspect it was decaffeinated. Please be aware that this decaf has very different coloring than most and is lighter, but it is one of the best decaf lots we've had.

This is the decaf version of our Shoye Union Sidamo coffee. We sent it for custom decaffeination and it came back great! Let's decode the name first of all: "Shoye Union" is the specific cooperative mill where this coffee originates. A Union = a cooperative. FTO = Fair Trade and Organic certified. Most importantly under current Ethiopia laws, this means the lot can be exported with the name of the mill intact. WP is Water Process Decaf, a non-chemical method using water filtration. Originally this is a Dry Process, DP special selection involves harvesting ripe cherry, promptly screen-drying on raised beds, and extra steps in sorting the coffee after it is hulled. This differs from other dry-process Ethiopia coffees, which are often sometimes assembled at the tail-ends of the crop, indiscriminately picked, and consolidated later (mixing good coffee with bad). The result is that this coffee has less distraction in terms of earthy, hidey or musty flavors, common in average DP Sidamo coffees. On the contrary, this lot from Shoye is a wonderful cup that we enjoyed immensely as a non-decaf selection and thought it would be very interesting as a decaf as well. We weren't expecting it to come back the same exactly, and there is a flavor shift for sure. If anything it cups a bit more like a wet-process Ethiopia, with cleaner bright fruit notes. The dry fragrance is very sweet, with strawberry and caramel aspects, and in the wet aroma a decaf savory scent comes out. It's a fantastic decaf cup, very sweet, caramel with melted milk chocolate notes, butter-rich body, mildly fruited layers of flavor. I found the creamy mouthfeel to be one of the most outstanding features, although it might not be the first thing you think of. It sets this part from other decafs and other non-decaf Ethiopia coffees as well. I can't write caramel and milk chocolate with enough emphasis. I get these sweet notes all through the roast range. Full City works especially well here, whereas my lightest City roast (barely through first crack) was a little mineral tasting. City+ roasts have more of a fruit-citrus accent, like a twist of bergamot and Earl Grey tea. There's a chocolate/alkaloid-like dryness in the long aftertaste initially, but as the cup cools the finish seems to be fade out with grace. Note that there is a lot of bean size variation and this coffee requires the Small Grid drum to attempt roasting it in a Behmor roaster. I made some very unusual SO espresso with this coffee, but I don't think it had rested enough after roasting. I will try again in a few days.

This is the Swiss Water Process decaf of our Guatemala Finca La Maravilla lot that we sent to Canada to decaffeinate. We think the results are great! Huehuetenango has some extraordinary coffee farms, and we have offered so many in the past: El Injerto, Huixoc, Injertal, and this one, Finca La Maravilla. I remember when we first offered this estate coffee, it's nicely fruited flavors and citrus brightness. So after several years of hiatus, we have it again, and it's every bit as good as the Maravilla of my memory. The farm is located very near El Injerto, in the La Libertad area of the state of Huehuetenango in Guatemala's north. The farm is owned by Mauricio Rosales and ranges from a very high 1500 meters all the way to 1850 meters. It is a bright coffee, a little lighter in body and less balanced perhaps than some of our other Guatemala offerings. But that is what makes it so special as well. The fragrance from the dry grounds has raisin and fig fruited notes, and a dark-toned sweetness with soft chocolate wafer accents. Adding hot water, the wet aromatics leap to life; caramel apple notes and chocolate raisins. The cup has a very nice balanced brightness, with orange notes in the lighter roast levels, and a dry effect in the finish. There is a nut-toned roast taste, almond-like, and praline as it passes into the aftertaste. And it has a caramel-maple sweetness throughout, from lighter roast levels to Full City. The body is medium-to-light, which suits the lively nature of this cup well, but at FC or FC+ roast levels has a very nice creamy mouthfeel. The La Maravilla decaf makes a fairly interesting decaf espresso blend component, adding aroma, fruit and brightness to the shot.

The Palo Blanco tree is used to shade coffee plantings, and is also the name of this farm in San Jose Pinula area near Fraijanes, Guatemala. This is a water process decaf that was sent directly to the decaffeination plant in Mexico from Guatemala. It retains the distinctive character of this coffee, and is very much a highland Guatemala in aromatics and cup flavors. I think it's a sweet cup, but has interesting spice notes and good acidic snap to it. The dry fragrance has apple ester notes and tons of roasted hazelnut. Sometimes this fruitiness is the result of the decaf process, and shouldn't be there in the aromatics, but in this case it is from the coffee. Fruited sweetness comes through in the wet aromatics too, malic and with some floral aspects too. In addition, the aroma is very sweet, and in the cup flavors the theme is continued ... classic Guat. character tinted with fruit and nut accents. I get a slight raspberry note in the City+ roast, and overall the character is bright, lively and high-toned. The aftertaste is brief, clean and pleasant, while the body is, as with most nice Guatemala coffees, light-to-medium. Overall, this cup echoes perfectly it's non-decaf counterpart; it has good Guatemala origin character.

Along with the really good, small-farm coffees from Chiapas, Oaxaca coffees are my right up there. Too bad we have had such trouble finding them, at least ones of decent quality from small coop or estate producers. This coffee originates from Beneficio Calvo lot from Pochutla are of the Oaxaca state. It was then decaffeinated using the water process method in Mexico. And I was excited when I cupped this coffee … even if a big decaf cupping is not always my favorite table of samples to evaluate. It was the best coffee on the table at light roast levels, City to City+. This was a real standout, with a very balanced, clean cup, mild milk chocolate notes, and a modicum of brightness. The dry fragrance is nutty and malty-sweet, while the wet aroma had a slight lemon and vanilla scent. It was the nuances in the cup that I rarely find in decafs, and especially a suggestion of citrus brightness in the finish at C+ roast .... The roast taste at a City+ roast is excellent; vanilla with a bit of almond nuttiness, and the brightness in the cup is there too, hinting at its origin as a true high-grown Oaxaca Pluma. This also does quite well with a Full City + or light Vienna roast treatment, turning sweetly pungent at the darker levels, but I will stick to light roasts here. Mild, balanced, drinkable, not a coffee you need to think about a whole lot. I kinda like that!

It has been quite a while since we have stocked a CO-2 decaf, an interesting method to remove caffeine from coffee that has not always been my favorite in terms of cup quality. But I was impressed with this Peru lot, a Fair Trade and Organic coffee that, unfortunately, I don't know the coop it originates from, or even the region! It was bought from the decaf plant, not what we usually do with decafs since we send our own lots mostly these days. Anyway, the cup was good and the main story here is the Carbon Dioxide process decaf method (sometimes called the sparkling water method). Here is how it works: Coffee is mixed with water, and the beans expand in size, their pores get opened and the caffeine molecules become mobile. At this point carbon dioxide is added at 100 atmospheres pressure to the pure water. Basically the water and the carbon dioxide are mixed to create the sparkling water. The carbon dioxide acts like a magnet and attracts all the caffeine molecules that became movable. When the caffeine is captured by the carbon dioxide, this is removed. The carbon dioxide is very selective and it doesn't touch the carbohydrates and proteins of the coffee beans, which would damage quality. When the carbon dioxide has finished removing the caffeine, the coffee seeds are dried naturally. Carbon dioxide is then recycled and caffeine is sold for other commercial uses. I was impressed with the brightness in the lighter roasts of this coffee, and it's very clean cup flavors. The dry fragrance has soft caramel notes in the lighter roasts (City to City+), and a cocoa bittersweet at the darker levels. Noteworthy is the absence of fruity scents found in Ethyl Acetate decaf coffees. The wet aroma follows the same trend, only a bit more pungent and aggressive at FC to FC+_ roast level. I find the lighter roast cups to have a very clean, clear cup

KVW is the German decaffeinator using the MC process under the strictest guidelines (much more so that US-processed decafs). This is a unique decaf lot because it starts with specific Sumatra Lintong, that already has some interesting defined character of its own. And as a decaf coffee, this Lintong maintains these unique roast flavors, just as in non-decafs the Blue Batak or the Lake Toba have rustic sweetness that is so different from classic Mandheling coffees. I thought this coffee really had pronounced "origin character." The dry fragrance is caramelly, almost like butterscotch, with a interesting chocolate biscotti quality. The wet aroma has a deep-toned sweetness, mollasses and caramel candy notes. The cup is (again) very caramelly, with medium body (I anticipate something thicker, but it does have a certain dense texture to it). The acidity is low, and there's a certain earthy and woody quality, the later reminding me of sandalwood. As it cools the sweetness turns to a medium malt syrup, and just a touch of sweet hay smell. In the lighter roasts, the finish has a lingering toasted grain note, while darker roasts develop some milk chocolate.

Sidikalang is a city and district immediately to the west of Lake Toba, the massive crater lake in North Sumatra. While it is near Lintong, Dolok Sanggul and other growing areas we source lots from, Sidikalang coffees have a different flavor profile, more like a classic Mandheling. Part of this is due to micro-climates and influences from the Lake, part is due to the cultivar. Sidikalang is in the Dairi district, and the altitude for coffee ranges from 1200 meters to 1500 meters in altitude. The area has it's own special long bean type, a form of Typica. Sidikalang is found less and less frequently in Sumatra and other parts of Indonesia. Much of the Typica was lost in the late 1880s, when Coffee Leaf Rust swept through Indonesia. However, both the Bergendal and Sidikalang varieties of Typica can still be found, especially at higher altitudes and in remote areas. The area around Sidikalang is still partly planted in it's eponymous cultivar, as well as the newer Ateng type. I can't say exactly how much is this old Typica type but a good portion certainly is. Anyway, we bought this for the nice cup character and sent it for custom decaffeination. I am really, really happy with the post-decaf results, and it just shows that if you start with better quality green coffee, the decaf results are markedly better. The dry fragrance has a spicy sweet quality, milky caramel, and some woody tones. Like many decafs the dry fragrance, where caramel sauce sweet scents dominate. It reminds me of Cajeta, a really delicious Mexican caramel sauce. There is also a mango and papaya fruited tone to the aroma, which also comes out in the cup flavors. The cup is a culmination of the aromatics; that same Cajeta sweetness, scented wood, mulling spice mix, ans slight fruit (papaya-mango) in the light roast. As it cools there's a banana bread flavor that comes out in the City + roast level. But it is the FC to FC+ that has that classic Mandheling cup; low acid, milk chocolate, body. And while the cup balances out towards body, and has low acidity, there is still a moderate brightness though the long finish. It's not your typical Toba area coffee, which can be herbal to an excessive degree. It has a slight banana peel dryness in the finish, and enough rustic funk to remind you it is a true Sumatra cup. In fact, the FC roast I did is better than 95% of the non-decaf Sumatras Grade One lots I have cupped this year!

People have requested that we offer a pre-blended espresso, a decaf counterpart to the Espresso Monkey blend. Working under the codename of the "Donkey Blend" (don't ask how all these ridiculous names started ---I think it was George's fault) we came up with this. It is intended to be used several ways. As an all-decaf espresso blend I wanted it to work well under a wide variety of roasting conditions, in terms of both lighter Northern Italian type espresso roasts (the equivalent of a Full City to Vienna Roast) and the darker Southern Italian type roast (roasted to a French roast). I also wanted a good espresso from both air and drum roasters, and I wanted good crema. This is a lot to ask from a decaf, but I think this blend works very well. While origin tastes are muted in decafs, I think the bittersweet roast tastes from this blend are very good. My second focus was having the blend not have too much character so that it can be used as a base blend for a "low-caf" espresso. This means it should work well as 50-75% of your blend where you add other caffeinated coffees to give more aromatics and flavor: my choice would be a Ethiopian Harar, or a Central American (see our Blending Basics article for more). Why do we call this Donkey Blend? Frankly, I can't remember .. it just is...

I was just in Uganda for the first time late last year, and learned quite a bit about the coffee growing and milling situation there. This decaf is from the same lot we offer as a non-decaf coffee, a nice Organic lot we happened across. It reminded me of last year's nice Uganda offering we had. In fact, I passed the warehouse and mill this coffee comes from while in Mbale town, which is an ideal place to store coffee. An overview: Mount Elgon lies in the Eastern reaches of the country, straddling the Uganda/Kenya border, within the district of Bugisu peoples. Judging by its enormous base it is thought that Mt Elgon was once the tallest mountain in Africa. The coffee shambas (smallholder farms) extend up and down the cliff faces, making use of natural water gullies and forest cover to extract moisture from the soil. The Sipi Falls is one of the great natural features of the Elgon region, a landmark of where this coffee originates, with smallholder farms between 1,400 and 1,900 meters. It is a steep and difficult terrain to traverse in the rainy seasons; often there are no roads, only dirt tracks that are washed away by the rains. But the Bagisu tribesmen (who inhabit Bugisu district, a sub-group of the Bamasaaba) have become expert coffee farmers. This decaf cups a bit like an Indonesia coffee, and can take a bit more roast too. Anything from City to FC+ or darker worked quite well. The dry fragrance has a chocolate biscuit quality in the dry grounds and plum-like dark fruit in the wet aroma. It's sweet and has a fairly burly and substantial aroma character. Lighter roasts had a mild milk chocolate note, and the dense body really jumped out at me. Chocolate notes dominate at FC+ roast, which was actually my favorite here. With hints of dark fruit in the background and a definite rustic hint to the cup, the aftertaste has a very nice, intense bittersweet chocolate character. It's a hefty, weighty coffee on the palate, something I don't find often in decafs from Africa. As I mentioned, it belongs more to an Indonesia taste family than other African coffees. This decaf works well for espresso!