Colombia El Yalcon Decaf Coffee

Here at Hasbean, 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.

As crops come and go during the year, our decaf offering changes and rolls with the seasons - right now it is a washed Caturra from El Yalcon in Huila, Colombia that has been decaffeinated using sugar cane. Please note - if you sign up for a recurring subscription to this coffee, you will always be sent our current decaf offering which occasionally changes throughout the year.

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 - above 1,500 metres above sea level.

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

Last 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 1900 m.a.s.l. 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.

Oh, by the way: this coffee is decaffeinated. We say this as a 'by-the-way' because it really is, we feel, the least important part of this coffee's name.

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.

There’s toffee and milk chocolate with a biscuity base - it’s like a toffee-pop. A hint of almond rounds out this easy-drinking decaf.