Decaf: Colombia El Yalcon Coffee

Coffee Flavour : Marzipan, candied lemon, sweet pastry, brown sugar

Here at Ozone, we're always on the lookout for tasty and delicious decaf. It can sometimes be a little tricky to get our hands on, but we aim to always have at least 1 decaffeinated coffee available at all times.

El Yalcón is a Colombian speciality coffee produced by 36 small-scale growers in the municipality of La Plata and Pitalito. These farms range from 1 to 5 hectares and are mostly located at higher altitudes.

They are also mainly cultivated with traditional varieties such as Caturra.

This year we finally got to visit our partners in Colombia. We spent time in La Plata and Pitalito in the Huila region of Colombia. Here we visited a few producers who contribute to the collective lot that we know as El Yalcon.

One of the farmers we visited was Joaquin Eladio Opsina Gil, his farm Finca Los Nogales was situated right up in the mountains at 1900masl. Here we met him and his wife, who showed us around their farm. They grow not only coffee but also Sugar cane and citrus fruits.

Sixteen years ago, he began his coffee journey as a picker in Antioquia, where he stayed because of his wife. Around 7 years ago, he purchased Finca Los Nogales and is still paying off the loan to this day. He took great pride in his work and showed us his wet mill where he is depulping and washing the coffee and his fermentation tanks.

This coffee is a Natural EA (ethyl acetate a.k.a. sugar cane) Decaf Coffee, processed at the Descafecol plant in Manizales. The decaffeination process at this plant uses ethyl acetate derived 100% from sugar cane mixed with mountain water, together removing 99.7% of the caffeine present. The beauty of the Natural EA process is that it helps preserve so much of the original flavor of the coffee while adding some sweet and fruity notes + a little complexity to the cup too.

We're really happy this lot was decaffeinated in Colombia and while this might not sound remarkable, we think it is! Most coffee is sent off to be decaffeinated in either Canada or Germany which adds a lot of miles to the journey those little green beans are taking, we think it's fantastic to be able to decaffeinate at origin and not only save on carbon footprint but also to give more work to those closest to where the trees grow.

Something that might not sound remarkable about this coffee is that It was decaffeinated in Colombia. Why is that remarkable? Because most coffee is decaffeinated in either Canada or Germany which adds food miles to the coffee, which is not good. What decaffeination in a coffee's producing country does is add value at the place where we're very happy to add value; that is, around 40 kilometres from the warehouse where the shipments are collated.

'SC' stands for sugar cane, because the decaffeination agent ethyl acetate is naturally derived from sugar cane.

An initial marzipan aroma leads into flavours of candied lemon and buttery sweet pastry. A long brown sugar note lingers in the finish.