This season’s decaf began its life as a washed coffee, grown by smallholder farmers high in the mountains of Risaralda, Colombia. We’ve been working with producers from the community of Risaralda since 2018, where we source coffee through our partnership with social enterprise importer Raw Material. Though decaffeination is a process which changes the flavours of coffee, it is always helpful to start with quality ingredients, such as this. By putting as much effort into growing and sourcing great coffee for our decaf as we do our other blends, Caravan and the producers of Risaralda are disrupting the traditional ideas that decaf drinkers do not deserve better.

Often described as the ‘natural process’ decaf, sugarcane decaffeination uses ethyl-acetate as a selective solvent to remove caffeine from the green coffee. Ethyl-acetate is naturally occurring organic compound produced by the fermentation of fruits, most often found in ripe bananas, and is used in a carefully controlled environment to ensure the removal of over 99.5% of all caffeine. The decaffeination process is conducted in-country, ensuring money is kept in the local economy, and reduces the carbon footprint of the coffee as no further shipping is required to get it to a decaffeination plant in Europe. Combined with the pricing structure at Raw Material which consistently pays fair prices well above the commodity coffee price, this decaf is delicious, sustainable and equitable – a perfect all-day drinker.

  Caravan Coffee Roasters are proud members of 1% for the Planet. For more information please visit https://www.onepercentfortheplanet.org

BREWING GUIDE

While decaf may look very dark to the naked eye, this is due to the decaffeination process and not the roast. At Caravan we take extra care to ensure our decaf isn’t overly roasted, meaning the resulting cups have a balance of sweetness rounded out by a touch of acidity. Our decaf should be consistent and easily extractable as both espresso and filter coffee. Our gold-standard espresso recipe is 18g of coffee to 36-38g of espresso, extracted for 26-28 seconds. For filter, try a starting recipe of 60g per litre of water, adjusted for size. For more brew tips and tricks, visit our Brew Guides.