Our latest decaf coffee is another Colombia Sugarcane EA but this time from the Popayan region in the Cauca department. Our import partner Cofinet work with 65 growers in the region who contribute to their regional coffees, some of which get sent off to the EA facility in Manizales for processing.

Ethel Acetate is a natural by-product of fermented sugar-cane, which bonds with the soluble caffeine compounds in the coffee and allows them to be stripped from the green beans. The process takes just under 24hrs from green to decaffeinated green through various stages of steaming, steeping in EA liquid and mechanical drying. We visited this huge facility at the end of 2022 and it’s a very sophisticated and highly controlled process. The EA method has become our main goto decaffeination technique and offers clean and sweet coffees and this one is no different.

For many years, Colombia was the number-one world producer of washed coffees, and the second-largest producer to Brazil. In 2000, Colombia was surpassed by Vietnam, and then the rust infestation of 2008 set them back significantly. Today they are currently in the top five of coffee production with roughly 10 million bags per year.

The Sugar Cane EA Decaffeination method:

In brief it's a natural method of decaffeination and starts by fermenting molasses derived from sugar cane to create ethanol. This alcohol is then mixed with acetic acid, which you'd find in vinegar, to create the compound ethyl acetate. In Colombia, where a lot of sugar cane is grown, it makes sense to use this naturally occurring solvent to complement their thriving coffee growing/processing industry. E.A. may sound scary, but you find it in wine, beer, fruit, vegetables, and other food and beverages.

The actual process requires the coffee to be first 'steamed' to open up its pores. Next, the E.A. is applied via water, which dissolves the caffeine in the green coffee. Then the caffeine is separated and filtered from the tank. Finally, the now-decaffeinated seeds are steamed again to remove any residual E.A. before being dried and shipped. This method avoids excessive heat or pressure, which can radically disrupt green coffees cellular structure.