Decaf, Burundi, Kayanza

This Burundi decaf is a blend of coffee from three different coffee washing stations in Kayanza Province; Yagikawa, Kazoza N'Ikawa, and Murambi. These sites work closely with local farmers, not only acting as an access point to the Specialty market, but also providing agronomical and financial assistance. When coffees are processed at the mill, they are kept separate by purchase date in order to identify and isolate different quality levels. The coffee is subjected to some of the highest scrutiny we see in any coffee producing region. First, the whole cherry is culled through by hand to remove any over and under ripe cherry, or other obvious, physical defects that will be processed separately as a lower grade. Then it is passed through the wet mill, typically disc depulpers or a demucilager, that have yet another layer of grading. After fermentation the coffee is sorted by density in grading channels. Finally, it is subjected to a whole lot of physical hand labor at the drying beds, sorting out any visible defects during the entire drying phase. The result share some of the cleanest looking (and tasting!) physical green coffee we see!

Decaffeination Process

Using the Swiss Water decaffeination process, the green coffee is hydrated to expand the beans for caffeine extraction. The hydrated green coffee is then introduced to Green Coffee Extract (GCE), a unique solution of concentrated coffee solubles that allows the caffeine to leave the green coffee via osmosis while minimizing the loss of desired flavor compounds. Once the caffeine has been removed the green coffee is re-dried and re-bagged for transport, and the GCE is filtered of its caffeine through proprietary carbon filters and recycled to be used again.