Good news or scarey as heck? Geneticists are working
on a plant that will grow coffee with no caffeine content, thus needing
no processing to remove the caffeine as all decaf is currently. Is this
good? It means no factory process to remove caffeine. It also could mean
contamination between natural unmodified trees and modified ones. Coffee
is very complex in terms of it's chemical makeup: it has over 800 compounds
contibuting to the flavor, more than any other beverage. Can you turn off
one genetic attribute and not affect others? We shall see the results from
the current research work (being conducted in Hawaii).
The Decaf Processes: Green
coffee is decaffeinated before roasting. This process changes to color
of the green coffee: it varies from light brown (Natural and CO-2)
to very dark brown (MC and Swiss Water Process -SWP- decafs). We are
listing a new, exciting decaf coffee as WP -Water Process ... new because
it comes from a source other than Swiss Water and exciting because
the cup quality is superb.
Decaf coffee roast faster than non-decaf coffees. Part
of the differences in how a decaf roasts are due to the physical changes
the coffee has experienced in the decaffeination process. But in an
air roaster it is also affected by the smooth surface of the bean,
which allows more air to flow around the coffee without transfering
the roaster heat to the bean. This smooth appearance is due to the
fact that decaffeination removes much of the thin chaff silverskin
from the outside of the coffee. As a plus, decaf produces little chaff
that will collect in your air roaster chaff collector.
Because of the darker color of decaf coffees, especially
the very dark SWP ones, it is difficult to roast decaf by judging the
color. It's best to pay attention to the sound of the cracks and the
roast aromas. It takes a few roasts to understand these sights and
smells, but its a fun process and even if the coffee comes out a bit
too light or too dark, it will still be freshly home roasted! And that
beats most store-bought coffee any day!
Decafs can have a lower 1st and 2nd crack temperature,
and can progress faster between the cracks. You can also see oils emerge
a few days after roasting a decaf despite the fact that you did not
reach 2nd crack (the usual reason you would see oils emerge). This
is because the bean structure of a decaf is more fragile after the
process, and the cell walls in the coffee tend to rupture at a lower
temperature, allowing oils to migrate to the surface. As with all coffees,
oils stale when exposed to oxygen, soit is preferred that your coffee
is not oily on the surface ... but for darker roasts and decafs it
is unavoidable.
Current Crop Comments:
The arrival of decafs always follows the main crop of a coffee by some months, since the coffee needs to be shipped to the decaffeination plant. Oddly, there are only a few such plants in the world, so decaf coffee has to travel a long way usually from origin, to plant and then to the buyer's country. Currently we have a new batch of decafs that are recently listed: a Mexico Oaxaca Pluma decaf, that is a very mild, sweet cup that can take a variety of roast; an Ethiopian DP Sidamo decaf which great aroma and Ethiopian character; a Sumatra Mandheling decaf with great body; and a lively, bright Colombia Huila decaf. Look for more to arrive in the next few weeks as well.
Our Decaf Coffee
Offerings: (You will need to read the reference
page to interpret terms and numbers used below
Brazil Cerrado WP Decaf
Decaf Brazil is a mild cup, and one of its best uses is for decaf blends (espresso, or to add body to darker roast drip-brewed decaf mix). But it can offer an interesting straight roast if you target the right roast level. It adds body and is a good "backdrop" in terms of roast taste. A backdrop coffee fills out the background of the cup and does not interfere with your "highlight" coffees, the ones that are going to be the exclamation point of your cup character. If you want earthiness in the cup, a Sumatra or Sulawesi can do this for you and provide body. But if you are not trying to develop an earthy "wild" blend, but want a cleaner espresso cup, then Brazil is very useful. It has great espresso use to create low-CAF or decaf blends with body and depth. If you like a very soft espresso cup, you will enjoy this Brazil as a straight decaf espresso (its a bit too mild for me). This Cerrado-region coffee is a traditional Brazilian dry-process coffee. What's that mean? Dry-process means that the ripe coffee cherry is picked by hand, laid out on patios to dry and then the outer pod and inner parchment layers are removed in one milling process to reveal the green coffee seed. But the old traditional Brazilian dry-process was dried on the tree, not on a patio! When a coffee is 100% tree-dried it can be too wild and have unpleasant off flavors. So before decaffeinating this coffee originates with a good lot of coffee, and the new water processor in Mexico that is producing decafs with more origin character than the previous SWP sources. Although the aromatics are low, this is an excellent "special purpose" coffee, great for a lo-caf blend base, and it's a nice low acid brewed cup at C+ roast. The flavor has a nutty tone in the lighter roasts, and creamy body, with mild chocolate emerging at FC roast. There is a slightly fruity, caramelly sweetness. For espresso, it produces adequate crema, and works as a backdrop for your caffeinated grace note coffees in the blend (Yemeni, Harar, Etc). The shots I have pulled with 100% Brazil WP decaf were very nice too, but would not cut through milk in cappuccino etc very well. Of course, if you make your cap correctly (1.5 oz espresso and a maximum of 4 oz milk) it will do fine. If you need an all-decaf espresso I would recommend 60% Brazil decaf, 20% of an Indonesian decaf like Sumatra, and 20% of a Central American decaf or Ethiopia decaf.
This is from a lot of from the area of Huila, in south Colombia. It has no special pedigree, but ended up being a really, really nice cup quality when we evaluated the arrival sample. This was sent for Water Process decaffeination in Mexico and is one of the brighter, more floral arrivals we have had from this source. In recent years we have been buying some remarkable coffees from this region of South Huila department, and in fact our most recent Cup of Excellence coffee is from the same area. So what we have here is a verified solid coffee in non -decaf form, that retained great sweetness and balance through the decaf process. (While there is often the strong possibility of a coffee going "flat" at the decaf plant, losing all its origin character, it always helps to start with a great coffee. Traditionally, brokers bought decaf from the plant, coffee supplied from lower grade "stocklots" by the decaffeinator themselves. The results were never very impressive. Now we are able to designate high quality lots, and get these kinds of results). This coffee has great brightness in the lighter roasts, as much as any decaf Colombia lots we have ever had. The aromatics are fairly mild, floral, and have marked sweetness, nutty roast tones, and hints of citrus. There are more toasty nut notes in the wet aromatics, with vanilla and sweet raisin. This cup is quite lively and bright at C+ roast levels, reminding me of the really nice Ethiopia decafs. In fact, some might want to take this to FC roast to tone down the cup. I found my favorite roast was FC, before 2nd crack, where the cup had the most balance. The aftertaste has a well defined, cleanly-disappearing sweetness. The body is fairly light at C+, which is not at all a negative because it suits the brisk nature of this cup. It rounds out considerably at FC roast.
La Magnolia is a trade name with a long history, and was consistently one of my favorite Costa Rica coffees for many years. Well, that was before I started dealing exclusively with the small farm micro-mills. But the fact is, La Magnolia is still a nice, clean cup, and this Swiss Water Decaf lot really impressed me for it's attractive sweetness. This coffee was formerly from Tres Rios area, but Tres Rios is now largely a shopping mall and subdivision in a booming suburb of San Jose, the Costa Rica capital. I am skeptical about how much coffee is truly grown in Tres Rios. Nonetheless, the La Magnolia mark goes on, and this Swiss Water cup was really nice. I noticed right away in the dry fragrance cup, a caramel and malty sweet note, with just a hint of molasses and fruit. This continues through the wet aroma, and into the cup, where sweetness, mild cherry-like fruit, and a nice velvety body. There's a very mild cocoa-laced chocolate note - it actually reminds me of a fudgecicle! I feel like this coffee sends another message, at least to me as a coffee buyer: Swiss Water has been working on their process and the results are improving. There was a time when everything from Swiss Water decaf plant tasted so flat and cardboard-like. But this coffee has a crystal clear brightness and sweetness, and a very smooth texture.
Intensity/Prime Attribute:Mild intensity / Sweet and clean, velvety body
Roast:City Roast to FC roast: I had nice, dark fruit in the FC roast, and it still had the brightness of the lighter roast
Compare to:A nice, sweet, clean, mild decaf. Remember, Swiss Water decafs are very dark color, so roasting visually is difficult. Rely more on smells, sound and temperatures here ...
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 Water Process (WP) method. Now that's confusing. This is still very much a Sidamo and that's the beauty of this coffee. It's bright, aromatic, spicey, fruited. We started with an exceptional lot of MAO Horse Dry-process Sidamo, which is a bright, fruited cup, highly aromatic, and we end up with something that can be described exactly the same way. In fact, I am really impressed by the strong fruited and floral aromatics, the syrupy body, and the slight rustic sweetness in this coffee. Sometimes our experience has been that a dry-processed Ethiopia will exit the decaf process with the cup character of a wet-process Ethiopia; lighter body, brighter acidity. It's not quite the case with this lot. If I cupped this blind I would not suspect it was decaffeinated. This decaf Sidamo has all the top-end, bright aromatic notes and floral-fruit character native to a really good Sidamo. I has medium-to-heavy body with the syrupy mouthfeel I already mentioned. In the cup, the flavors are remarkably floral: Jasmine! There's a great honeyed roast taste, with a long floral finish with tangerine citric sweetness. As it cools the jasmine becomes more tea-like. This is an amazing decaf, really.
Along with the really good, small-farm coffees from Chiapas, Oaxaca coffees are my favorite. 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.
This is another coffee that originated with an really nice Sumatra lot brought into the U.S., and then was sent to water-process decaffeinator in Mexico. The difference here is important to note. In the past many decaf lots of Sumatra were bought by the plant itself, then sold to coffee brokers, without regard for the original quality of the green coffee. The result was very flat coffee with little "origin character". Here we have a Mandheling type coffee with strongly Sumatra flavor profile (Remember, Mandheling is a trade name for Sumatra coffees, not a particular region. But this coffee originates in the Lake Tawar-Takengon area of Aceh district). I cupped quite a few Fair Trade, Organic and FTO lots to pick out this one, which is a standard Grade One Mandheling that survived the decaffeination process intact. The results of my roasts from C+ to FC+ are impressive; not so much when the cup is hot (perhaps it loses a step on the non-decaf Sumatra in this respect), but as it cools. It has great espresso use to create low-caf or decaf blends with body and depth. I like it as a straight decaf espresso too when roasted about 20 seconds into 2nd crack. It is very much a Sumatra cup profile but a bit cleaner and less earthy than its non-decaf Mandheling counterpart. There are foresty tones in the aromatics and the cup, dense body, low acidity, and a rustic sweetness that reminds one of sorghum syrup, if you have ever tasted that (like a malt syrup with an earthy aspect).
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...
Roast:As with all decafs, remember they roast faster and have the propensity to get away from you and end up darker than you expected. So attend to the roaster and stop the roast manually if possible to get it just right. Roast preference with espresso is up to you. I personally prefer the lighter N. Italian roast -just a bit mire than a Full City.
