Characteristics and Story of Colombian Decaf Coffee Beans - What Coffee Beans Are Used for Colombian Decaf Coffee

Decaf coffee has always been a product of great attention, as it removes most of the caffeine while preserving the flavor of coffee beans, making it suitable for people who enjoy black coffee but are caffeine intolerant. Colombian decaf coffee is particularly excellent in quality. Therefore, FrontStreet Coffee has also sought several decaf coffees with outstanding flavors.

One decaf coffee that FrontStreet Coffee has selected is a Swiss Water Process decaf coffee bean from Huila, Colombia.

FrontStreet Coffee Colombian Decaf Coffee

Region: Colombia, Huila

Altitude: 1750 meters

Variety: Typica

Processing Method: Swiss Water Process

Flavor Notes: Berries, citrus, cocoa, nuts

Coffee Growing Region Introduction

Colombian Huila belongs to the Colombian National Coffee Company's selected high-altitude coffee beans, known as Colombia's national treasure. With superior geographical and climatic conditions, Colombian coffee has always maintained high quality. Typically, Colombian coffee beans without special market trademark names come from the National Federation of Colombia Coffee Growers, which has always been known for its strict quality control and active promotion.

Colombian coffee beans are extremely well-known worldwide, and their high-quality washed beans have always been representative of premium coffee. Coffee beans exported from Colombia undergo specific gravity checks and manual removal of defective beans, and are only bagged after layers of strict inspection, thus ensuring the quality of Colombian coffee.

FrontStreet Coffee believes that the poor taste of decaf coffee is not caused by the processing method. This is because most decaf coffees select some inexpensive, commercial-grade coffee beans as raw materials. Modern decaffeination technology is quite complex, and in most cases, companies producing decaf coffee naturally prefer coffee bean varieties with higher caffeine content (such as Robusta beans) when selecting raw materials. Before the decaf coffee beans undergo decaffeination treatment, the coffee beans were already not tasty. Just like other coffee beans sold in coffee shops, if decaf coffee beans start with high-quality Arabica coffee beans from the beginning as raw beans, then even after decaffeination treatment, decaf coffee can still have very good performance.

The batch of Colombian decaf raw coffee beans selected by FrontStreet Coffee is of Supremo grade. In the Colombian coffee bean system, Supremo is the highest grade. The quality is very guaranteed.

Processing Method

This batch uses the Swiss Water Process decaffeination technology, employing a commercially developed high-efficiency processing method with two main steps. The first step is to pour the coffee beans in their raw state into hot water. At this time, the hot water removes all flavor factors from the raw coffee beans, including "caffeine," and this initial batch of raw coffee beans is discarded and not used.

Afterward, the hot water loaded with all flavor factors is filtered through activated carbon to remove caffeine, leaving behind hot water filled with pure flavor factors. In the Swiss Water Process, this water is called "Flavor-Charged Water," which contains saturated flavor factors from raw coffee beans but lacks caffeine, making it the most important medium in the decaffeination process.

When a new batch of raw coffee beans is soaked in the flavor-saturated, caffeine-free Flavor-Charged Water, they release caffeine from the raw coffee beans but do not release flavor factors. In this way, the original flavor of the raw coffee beans is not significantly diminished. Obviously, the flavor factors in the Flavor-Charged Water are already nearly saturated, so they cannot dissolve more flavor factors, but there is still plenty of room to dissolve caffeine.

This series of steps effectively removes 99.9% of caffeine. Besides not requiring chemical solvents, the used solution can also be reused in different batch processing procedures.

FrontStreet Coffee Roasting Parameters

FrontStreet Coffee's roaster adopted a medium roast to highlight the rich mouthfeel and sweetness of this bean. The beans are charged at 165°C, and the temperature drops to 92.5°C at 1'32" and starts to rise again, with heat maintained at 130 and air damper at 3. Around 3 minutes, the air damper is raised to 4, and at 4 minutes, heat is increased to maintain the temperature during the dehydration period. The yellowing point is reached at approximately 6'15" with a temperature of 153.5°C. After reaching the development period, heat is increased to create thermal momentum for stable temperature rise between 6-10 minutes. The first crack occurs at 9'57" with a temperature of 183.2°C, at which point heat is raised to 176 to prevent temperature loss. The beans are discharged 2 minutes and 30 seconds after the first crack.

Because this coffee undergoes a decaffeination process where coffee beans need to be soaked in hot water to release caffeine and then undergo drying treatment, the fiber structure of the coffee may change during this process, causing oils to be more easily released when roasting reaches medium-dark levels, making the beans appear glossy and oily.

FrontStreet Coffee Brewing Suggestions

Brewing Parameters:

Dose: 15g

Ratio: 1:15

Water Temperature: 88°C

Grind Size: Coarse grind (62% pass-through rate with #20 standard sieve)

Dripper: KONO dripper

To brew a richer coffee, the KONO dripper is used. This dripper is designed to brew a flannel-like mouthfeel. After wetting the filter paper and dripper with water, they fit tightly together, creating a closed space that produces a siphon effect, making the extracted coffee richer.

Brewing Technique:

1. Pour in the coffee grounds and inject 2x the water amount (30ml) for a 30-second bloom.

2. Then perform the second pour, gently injecting 150ml of hot water in a circular motion to push up the coffee bed, creating a golden foam layer on the surface.

3. Wait for the water level to drop slightly, then inject the final 45ml. Remove the dripper once all the coffee liquid has flowed into the lower chamber to complete extraction. Total extraction time is 2 minutes and 10 seconds.

Flavor Description

The flavor of this coffee features nutty and cocoa aromas, with black chocolate as the main note, accompanied by berry and citrus fruit acidity.

For more specialty coffee beans, please add FrontStreet Coffee on WeChat: kaixinguoguo0925

Important Notice :

前街咖啡 FrontStreet Coffee has moved to new addredd:

FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473