Decaf Mama Guatemala

Want to make sure you never run out? This product is available as a subscription for only £12 per 250g (including UK shipping). Find it HERE.

Region: Atitlán, Antigua and Nuevo Oriente
Altitude:  1,500+ m.a.s.l
Variety: Bourbon, Caturra, Catuai, Tipica
Processing: Washed and honey process, sugarcane decaffeinated

Tasting notes: Mouth-filling flavours of toasted hazelnut and malted chocolate make this a remarkably drinkable decaf. Sweet and full, with a generous finish. 

This is a curated regional lot made up of coffee that was grown and processed on five farms: El Durazno, San Jerónimo Miramar, Rabanales, San Jorge and Gascon. Each farm brings its own unique characteristics creating a flavour profile that is at the heart of the story behind its name, Mama. Marta Dalton, head of Coffee Bird, the importer who brought us this coffee, tells us that this was the coffee she wanted to drink when she was recently pregnant and needed a good decaf. It’s also the first decaf coffee Coffee Bird has sold, making it the mother of all decafs!

The sugarcane decaffeination process uses a naturally occurring compound, ethyl acetate, to remove the caffeine from coffee beans. Ethyl acetate is a food by-product found most commonly in the fermentation of fruits, and is present in both ripe bananas and beer for example. This coffee is called "sugarcane" decaf because the ethyl acetate used is from fermented sugarcane.

The process begins with steaming the coffee to increase its porosity and to begin hydrolysis of the caffeine, which is usually bonded to salts and chlorogenic acid in the bean. The beans are then submerged in an ethyl acetate solvent, removing 97% of the caffeine. Finally the coffee is steamed again to remove any residual ethyl acetate, and then dried to a stable moisture content for shipping.

As coffee prices rise and the market becomes tighter it’s getting harder than ever to source quality decafs. Over the last 12 months there have been fewer to choose from so we’re happy we were able to secure this exceptional lot. The beauty of sugarcane decaffeination is that it helps preserve most of the original flavours of the coffee while enhancing its natural sweetness. It’s decaf that doesn’t taste like decaf!

A note about packaging

Our coffee comes packaged in beautiful and hard wearing tins. It is important to keep those beans away from air and light (see our blog post about coffee storage) and we think tins are the very best way of keeping those guys fresh. 

Tins can of course be easily recycled (with other metals) but the very best and most environmentally conscious thing to do with them is to refill them. Find out how to refill or dispose of your Steampunk packaging HERE.