Camionetta Decaf

We love the coffee industry’s growing attention to high quality decaf. Since the start we have been looking for great decaffeinated lots and have found some beautiful coffees along the way. But this Camionetta anoxic natural decaf from El Carmen really stands out. It’s a tropical, juicy flavour bomb that really showcases how far the decaffeination process has come.

El Carmen is a washing station managed by Red Association, a collaboration between coffee producers brought to life by Raw Material in Colombia. It provides stable and sustainable prices for producers through a connection to the specialty market, improved quality control, and shared knowledge across the value chain.

The Camionetta anoxic process was also created by Raw Material in El Fenix, Colombia. This process aims to simplify the complicated fermentation techniques while making them accessible to anyone wanting to improve the quality of their coffee. They started using a simple sheet of plastic to separate a layer of water from the fermenting coffee cherries.The sheet provides a barrier between the water and the coffee and is thin enough to allow the water to fill the shape of the tub, forming a pillow of water above the coffee. In doing so the water can serve two functions; firstly it creates an anoxic fermentation environment, one low in free molecular oxygen. Secondly, the water in this state acts as a large heatsink, to draw heat away from the fermenting coffee, which regulates the risk of developing off flavours and also aids in prolonging shelf life. 

Sugar cane decaffeination is often termed as a natural process decaf. Ethyl Acetate is an organically existing compound (C4H8O2) and by-product found most commonly in the fermentation of fruits and is present in both ripe bananas and beer for example. The EA process is relatively simple. The coffee beans are moistened with water and EA is circulated throughout. The EA binds with the caffeine in the bean and extracts the caffeine while leaving most of the other flavor compounds. After the desired caffeine level is reached, the EA residue on the beans is removed by steaming them.