Monthly decaf subscription (The decaf coffee may change throughout the year so we are always getting the best quality).

Broad Overview: Juan Aristizábal EA Sugarcane decaf is sweet, medium-bodied with gentle fruit acidity. A great coffee that has been well decaffeinated.

Tasting Notes: White chocolate, cinnamon, maple, gentle citrus, creamy mouthfeel and a mellow, clean finish

Country: Colombia

Region: Villamaria & Caldas.

Varietals: Caturra, Colombia & Castillo

Process: Natural

Best for: A true all-rounder and great with milk.

Deep dive: On the western slopes of the Nevado del Ruiz, an extinct volcano, Villamaría is in the centre of the famous Colombian Coffee Axis. While the rough terrain offers a challenging environment

for humans, the high altitude, the fertile soil and the tropical climate are perfect conditions for coffee cultivation. When declaring the area “World Heritage”, the Unesco has recognised the tremendous human adaptation and the efforts of coffee farmers over generations to obtain a decent source of income for their families. Since the end of the 18th century, through their adaptation and efforts, coffee grower families have shaped the landscape in which natural, economic and cultural elements are combined and which is unique in the world. Through their work, coffee eventually became the main development driver of the area.

Juan Felipe Aristizábal is known as The Alchimist. Part of a community consisting of smallholder farmers from Villamaría, Chinchiná and Manizales that operate a wet mill, Juan is in charge of pro- cessing all high-quality cherries from specific and traceable farms. He has standardised the Natural process as follow: after being floated and hand-sorted, the cherries are dried on patios for 30 days.

THE DECAFFEINATION PROCESS

When the parchment is ready, it undergoes the decaffeination pro- cess at Descafecol in Manizales, the local - and unique in Colombia - decaf company.

Descafecol applies a combined process of spring water and naturally created Ethyl Acetate (EA). The latter is naturally present in all coffee (as in many fruits and vegetables) and no other substances are added. The natural EA is sourced from the sugar cane industry around Palmira, in Valle del Cauca and is, together with spring water, the only other substance with which the coffee comes into contact.

The EA-water decaffeination process from Descafecol works in three steps:

• During the pre-treatment phase, the parchment is heated with low-pressure steam to remove the cuticle attached to the bean. The coffee is then moistened with hot water to swell and soften the beans to begin the hydrolysis of caffeine that is bound to chlorogenic acid salts within the beans.

• The coffee is then taken to extractors, where the extraction phase occurs. Caffeine removal is done by successive washing of the beans with recirculation of solvent (natural ethyl acetate) in the extractors. This procedure must be done several times in order to remove a minimum of 97% of the caffeine initially present in the coffee beans. Once the caffeine ex- traction is finished, the coffee beans have to be stripped of the solvent, for which a low-pressure saturated steam stream through the coffee bed in the extractor to remove all remain- ing traces of EA.

• In the post-processing, the beans are sent to vacuum drying equipment which removes the water applied in the first stage and brings the beans back to a 10-12% moisture rate.