We liked Atunkaa very much and so we are replacing our natural lot with a fresh harvest, this time washed (until the natural lot comes fresh again).
The coffee beans came to us from Siruma. A Colombian company founded five years ago to work with underdeveloped farming communities in Cauca, Caldas and Tolima. The company’s name comes from the indigenous Wayuunaiki language and means ‘sky and sky’.
Atunkaa decaffeinated sugarcane coffee represents Siruma’s commitment to transparency and fair pricing for farmers. It comes from the Association for Peace in Central Cauca (ACC) in Piendamó, Cauca province. ACC was founded by a local farmer who wanted to add value to the Castillo coffee variety and ensure a stable income so that neighbours could avoid illegal crops.
The conventional washing process was followed by a decaffeination process.
The Sugar Cane Decaf Process:
The coffee first undergoes steaming at low pressure to remove the parchment. It is then placed in hot water to swell and soften the beans. This then prepares the coffee to hydrolyse the caffeine, which is bound to the chlorogenic acid salts in the coffee.
The extract (naturally derived from the fermentation of the sugar cane and not from chemical synthesis) is then infused into the pre-prepared coffee which is washed several times with a natural ethyl acetate solvent to reduce the caffeine to the correct level. Once this process is complete the coffee must be cleaned of any remaining ethyl acetate using pressurised steam before moving to the final boxes. From here the coffee is moved to vacuum drying drums where the water previously used to wet the beans is removed and the coffee is dried to 10 to 12%.
Notes from our baristas:
This decaf is worth it! You wouldn’t even know it has gone through the decaffeination process.
Espresso
The recipe that has worked the best for us on the espresso was 1 : 2.23 with a time of between 27 and 30 seconds. The result was a very pleasant, smooth espresso with stone fruit juiciness, subtle floral notes similar to lemongrass and a sweetness similar to chocolate cookies. Even in a milk drink the coffee did well. The cappucino was beautifully balanced and smooth with notes of caramel and chocolate.
Filter
For the filter, we used the same coarse of grinding as we’re used to with other washed coffees and the coffee flowed a little slower. With a total time of around 3 minutes and 20 seconds. Even on the filter the coffee had a nice apricot-like juiciness and a lighter floral body. Overall, a very pleasant drink and one would not even know they were drinking decaf.
