Origin: BrazilProcess: Swiss Water DecafAltitude: 1000mHarvest: May – AugustFlavour: Creamy, Nutty, SweetSCA score: 80Varietal: Bourbon, Catuai Only water, temperature, and time to gently remove caffeine, while preserving all the coffee’s original characteristics. Free of chemicals or residual processing flavours. In a nutshell, the Swiss Water Process relies on caffeine solubility (dissolvability) and osmosis to remove caffeine from green coffee beans. To begin the decaffeination process, green coffee beans are soaked in hot water to dissolve the caffeine. However, caffeine isn’t the only water-soluble substance present in coffee. Sugars and other chemical components that create the flavour and aromas of coffee we love can also dissolve in water. So, how do you decaffeinate coffee without solvents and retain the flavour profile of your favourite beans? After soaking, the water from the first round of green beans is passed through a charcoal filter. Caffeine is a large molecule and gets trapped in the filter while the sugars, oils and other chemical elements in coffee that impart flavour and aroma pass through and stay in the water to create what is called Green Coffee Extract. This green coffee extract-infused water is now used to soak the next batch of green beans. Since the Green Coffee Extract already contains the other elements of flavour, those substances won’t dissolve from the beans and just the caffeine is removed. It may sound complicated, but the result is decaffeinated coffee that is high on flavour and free from additional chemical solvents. This method was created in Switzerland in the 1930s and scaled for commercial coffee production by the 1980s.
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