Colombia - NASA WESX (Sugar Cane Decaf)

Colombia - NASA WESX (Sugar Cane Decaf)

A sweet, funky and chocolaty coffee without the caffeine.

This coffee comes from the Planadas terroir in the south of Tolima. It’s grown by several small farmers, all part of the NASA WESX Cooperation. The coffee is organic produced but the certification cannot be maintained, because the process of decaffeination cannot be organic certified, as the sugar cane that provides Ethyl Acetate in large quantities is not organic. Something to keep in mind is that even though the NASA WESX coffee is not organic, it does not mean it is not clean! 

Sugar Cane Decaf

The coffee is decaffeinated by using a natural method involving sugar cane. Molasses from the sugar cane are fermented to create ethanol. This ethanol (ethyl alcohol) is then mixed with acetic acid to produce the ethyl acetate. First they steam the green coffee beans to open their pores and then they are rinsed in the ethyl acetate to remove caffeine. Then the beans are dried to 10-12% humidity. To seal the pores of the beans, a natural wax is used. The wax does not affect the flavour, fragrance or aroma of the coffee. This process removes 97 – 99% of the caffeine from the coffee.

We were very surprised by the fruitiness of this coffee! It’s clean, sweet, slightly funky and delicious. A great coffee to drink when you are craving coffee, but can’t use caffeine.