Brews up a cup profile with bitter roast offset by caramelized sweetness, notes of dark cocoa, brown sugar, chocolate wafer cookie, and a malty layer, with hints of bread dough.
The Kachalú group in Santander are made up of 110 coffee producers, each with roughly 10 hectaers of coffee. You see a lot of Catimor and Variedad Colombia coffee cultivars in this region, both varieties bread for disease resistance and high crop yield. Each farmer processes their own coffee at home in small wet mills, depulping on small processing equipmnet, fermenting in tanks, and drying in enclosed parabolic drying rooms. This is a Mountain Water Process decaf from Descamex in Veracruz, who employ a direct contact method that uses water filtration to separate the caffeine from the coffee without using chemical solvents. The result is a close proximity to the coffee pre-decaf. At least in the case of this coffee!
Kachalú decaf has a mildly sweet fragrance, the aroma producing spiced sweet notes, and a hint of honey wheat bread in the background. Medium roasts brew up a cup profile of bittering chocolate, light brown sugar, and chocolate wafer cookie. It’s a very convincing flavor profile when hot (meaning tough to tell it’s decaf), marked by subtle brightness that lends to perception of acidity as well.
- Origin: Colombia
- Region: Santander
- Producer: The Kachalú group
- Altitude: 1700m
- Cultivars: Caturra, Castillo, Colombia and Typica
- Certificate: USDA Organic
- Processing: Wet Process (Washed) then WP Decaf
- Drying: Covered Sun-Dried
- Sourcing: Sweet Maria’s