Tasting notes

- chocolate biscuit, almond & pear

Growth story

This coffee was produced by 14 smallholder coffee producers from the region surrounding the small town of San Antonio, located within the municipality of Inzá in the state of Cauca, Colombia.

The town of San Antonio has breathtaking views of Colombia’s highest volcano, Nevado del Huila, which sits at the point where the states of Huila, Tolima and Cauca meet. The rich, volcanic soil of the region is ideal for agriculture and contributes to the excellent cup quality of coffees grown and processed here. Farms in the area tend to be small – on average just one hectare – and either have their own micro-beneficio (wet mill) or share one with family or neighbours. Farmers grow a mixture of Caturra trees along with newer varieties Castillo and Colombia, which have proven more resistant to leaf rust. The region’s cool overnight temperatures result in dense beans, which are notable for their sweetness and complexity. The lower temperatures and high rainfall experienced here also affect processing, making longer ferment and drying times necessary.

The Decaf Process

For this decaffeinated lot, Pergamino has enlisted the services of Colombia’s only decaffeination plant, Descafecol, located in the city of Manizales, in the western state of Caldas. The company uses ethyl acetate to decaffeinate coffees, a natural component derived from fermented sugarcane that is also found in certain fruits (especially when they are very ripe). The process begins when milled green coffee is placed in tanks and steamed to remove the silver skin. The tanks are then filled with hot water to soften and open up the seeds’ cell membranes, ‘loosening’ their caffeine compounds. An ethyl acetate solution is then introduced to the coffee and cycled through several times, with increasingly more caffeine bonding to the chemical compound the longer it is exposed. Descafecol’s goal is to remove as much as 99.9% of the beans’ caffeine. Once they have achieved this target, the coffee seeds are gently dehydrated in vacuum dryers, until the desired moisture content of 11% is reached. The slow nature of this process has one key benefit: the coffee’s cell structure is only marginally compromised and sugar is retained, meaning beans remain dense and roast similarly to their non-decaffeinated counterparts.