This coffee is from Risaralda, Colombia, with a focus on cup consistency. The decaffeination process is unique to Colombia, in that the caffeine is extracted using sugar cane and water. This helps to retain both flavour and sweetness in the coffee beans.
Ethyl acetate is produced by esterification between ethyl alcohol and acetic acid. The ethyl acetate is produced by sugarcane grown locally. Sugarcane grows at lower elevations than coffee and is often planted at the base of the same mountains where coffee flourishes. Ethyl acetate and spring water are the only substances coffee comes into contact with during the decaffeination process. This process is FDA approved and the ethyl acetate produced by Sucroal is verified food grade, kosher, and halal.
Ethyl acetate is a natural solvent, meaning it can dissolve other substances. This process gently extracts the caffeine from coffee beans, avoiding the use of excessive heat that could damage the structure of the beans.
The ethil acetate process begins with a pretreatment step of steaming coffee beans at a low pressure to remove silver skins. Coffee is then moistened with hot water to swell and soften the beans to catalyze the hydrolysis (the chemical breakdown of a substance due to reaction with water) of the caffeine, which is bonded to chlorogenic acid inside the coffee.
Coffee next passes to an extractor, where caffeine is removed by repeatedly washing with the natural solvent ethyl acetate. This process happens several times to complete the extraction stage, removing more than 97% of caffeine, per US standards.
Once caffeine extraction is complete, a flow of low-pressure steam is passed over coffee to strip residual ethyl acetate, leaving less than 5 ppm, which evaporates at 70°C once coffee beans are roasted.
Coffee, now decaffeinated and free from ethyl acetate, moves from the extractors to the vacuum drying drums to remove the water applied during the moistening step and adjust the final humidity of the beans to between 10-12%. Coffee is cooled to ambient temperature using fans and polished as the final step of post-treatment. Coffee is then ready to be packed and shipped as decaf, providing the full and delicious flavor of Colombian terroir to those sensitive to stimulants!
