Our Tumbaga is named for an alloy of gold, copper, and silver that was used throughout Colombia to make small, often religious, objects. This alloy symbolically married the contradictory energies of sun (gold) and moon (silver), producing a balance between opposites, much like our Tumbaga Sugarcane Decaf. An excellent cup without the caffeine, our Tumbaga will energize you without keeping you up at night.
Decaffeination Using Ethyl Acetate (EA)
The sugarcane process gets its name because ethyl acetate, or EA, is used to decaffeinate coffee. EA is a natural compound derived from cane sugar that can be found in fruits and other foods. Being derived from sugar, EA bonds to chlorogenic acids found in caffeine. When EA bonds to chlorogenic acids, the separation of the caffeine from the coffee bean begins.
Here's the step-by-step process:
- Coffee is delivered green and unroasted to be decaffeinated.
- It's steamed for 30 minutes before the decaffeination process starts. The steaming process is low-pressure, so the pores of the coffee can be opened, allowing for the extraction of the caffeine.
- Once the coffee is ready, it's placed and submerged into the EA solution for a specific amount of time. During this time, the EA bonds to the chlorogenic acid and separates the caffeine from the rest of the coffee bean.
- Beans reach a level of saturation that requires the tank to be emptied and refilled with fresh solution. This process repeats and continues for about eight hours or until the coffee has been sufficiently decaffeinated.
- Once all the caffeine is removed, the beans are prepped to be steamed again. This second steaming removes all traces of EA.
- Once the decaf coffee is dried, it's polished to ensure it stays clean and then packaged and distributed.
If you have roasted coffee beans for a while, you can see the difference in unroasted beans right away. They're usually much darker than beans that have not undergone decaffeination. For our coffee purposes, we love the Sugarcane process because the EA used is derived from sugar cane, and it doesn't sacrifice the flavor of the coffee. It still showcases the hard work of producers, making it a product we are proud to offer to our customers.
