Please note that this is a pre-sale. Orders will ship on December 5th

Colombia La Virgen Guadalupe

While the James Hoffmann Decaf Project has been an incredible way to highlight roasteries around the world, we want to share more about the coffee in question, and to learn more about the community behind it.

Guadalupe is a small but mighty coffee producing community in the southeast of the Huila Department, a region famous the world over for its exceptional coffee and unique cup profile. The people of Guadalupe share a remarkable spirit of collaboration with one another, and the coffees produced in this town are strictly high grown at elevations between 1400-2000 meters above sea level. Caravela, the importer who has partnered with James Hoffman to facilitate the Decaf Project, has been working with the coffee growers of Guadalupe since 2013 and have helped them build the infrastructure necessary for growing and processing coffee, saving the townspeople from having to make a long trek to the Pitalito washing station to bring their produce to market. This being a community lot, the coffee is a blend of Colombia, Castillo and Caturra cultivars, all very common to the region and known for being well suited for the diverse microclimates of Huila. Aside from the elevation, these coffees benefit from a number of ideal environmental factors, such as cool mountain breezes, healthy soil, and the perfect combination of sunshine, shade cover and rainfall. Many of the farmers who contribute to this community lot are multigenerational farmers on smallholdings, the sizes of which average 4 hectares, or about 9 acres. The coffee plants are grown for supplemental income alongside crops of corn, beans and fruit trees that are typically cultivated for personal use. Traditional farming practices such as this promote the biodiversity of flora in the region and are key to building healthy soil, as well as preventing diseases; oftentimes reducing the need for pesticides, herbicides and fungicides. In this tasting kit, you will receive 4 sample bags, each with 4 ounces of the following coffees, this quantity will enable recipients of this kit to try these coffees a number of times.  

-The first method of decaffeination is one that is very familiar to us, the ethyl-acetate, or EA, decaf method. First, the green coffee is steamed so that the pores of the seeds open up to expose the caffeine within. Once done, Ethyl acetate, a natural byproduct of fermented sugarcane, is introduced to the coffee, and it selectively absorbs the caffeine compounds and is then washed off the beans before they are once more dried and packaged for export.

-The second is the CO2 Subcritical process, wherein coffee is exposed to a chamber of liquid CO2 and subcritical, or low temperature and air pressure conditions. The CO2 effectively targets and removes the caffeine and the CO2 slurry is later reprocessed so that the coffee can be dried back to its original moisture content and the caffeine can be distilled out of the mixture so it can be used for other purposes. This process is renowned for how true to original the coffee will taste, it also allows the coffee to maintain organic certification if it has been previously qualified.

-The last method is fast becoming one of our very favorites, as we have begun to seek out their coffees since they offer a lot of single origin coffees that have been decaffeinated at their facility in Vancouver, British Colombia. Swiss Water’s method is perhaps the newest process of the three and has become renowned for how it keeps coffee tasting remarkably true to form. By making use of water, temperature and time, the process begins with exposing coffee to a Green Coffee Extract (GCE) solution, a proprietary liquid that contains fresh water and compounds containing all of the soluble solids within coffee, excluding caffeine. The green coffee is then immersed in the GCE solution, and during this infusion, the beans begin to release the caffeine within as it is gradually absorbed into the slurry over the course of eight or so hours. This process allows the caffeine to be distilled and reused, and this, like the Subcritical CO2 method, allows the coffee to maintain all of its previous organic certifications. 

-El Virgen Guadalupe washed, the fully caffeinated version of the coffee featured in the Decaf Project. This offering will serve as an excellent control to compare the decaf processes against each other, as it is a quintessential Colombian coffee that we’ve come to expect from the high elevations of Huila.

These coffees will all be roasted on our Loring Peregrine 70 kilogram roaster with the exact same roast profile. This way we can make sure the only differences in the cup profile are determined by the decaffeination method alone. Orders for this tasting kit will be roasted, packaged and shipped on December 5th to ensure that the coffee arrives in time before the live tasting event on December 15th! 

In a break from our typical form, at the request of the team at the Decaf Project, we will be omitting flavor notes so that these coffees can be experienced without any such preconceived notions. This will be a great way for participants to cup and evaluate these coffees and to exercise your tastebuds to discover what you enjoy about the coffee in question. We hope you will enjoy the challenge! We wish you a happy cupping and, as always, cheers!

Region: Huila, Colombia

Producer: Guadalupe Community

Cultivar: Colombia, Castillo, Caturra

Process: Washed

Altitude: 1400-2000 masl

Roast Degree: Light