Decaffeinated | Risaralda | Colombia

Sugarcane Decaf - Washed Process

Profile: Medium Espresso

Notes: Brown sugar, citrus, chocalate

Region: Santuario, El Aguila, & Entreverdes, Risaralda

Farm/CWS: Santuario Mill

Producer: Red Association Growers, Raw Material

Altitude: 1400-2000m

Variety: Caturra, Colombia, Castillo

Red Association Santuario

The producers contributing to this lot are members of Red Santuario, a regional association within the wider Red Associations project developed by the social enterprise Raw Material Coffee.

Raw Material works with smallholder producer groups across Colombia to improve market access and rebalance parts of the supply chain that have historically favoured exporters and traders. Through the Red Associations model, producers organise into regional networks that collectively process, market, and export coffee, allowing them to connect more directly with specialty buyers.

In Risaralda, the project focuses on post-harvest improvement and shared infrastructure. Producers receive support with fermentation management, drying techniques, and lot separation, while shared drying facilities and quality control labs help maintain consistency across the network.

By organising producers collectively and building long-term relationships with international buyers, Red Santuario aims to provide more stable market access while helping farmers capture more value from higher-quality coffees.

 

The Process - Washed Sugarcane Decaf

Sugarcane decaffeination is often termed as a natural process decaf. Ethyl Acetate is an organically existing compound (C4H8O2) and by-product found most commonly in the fermentation of fruits, and is present in both ripe bananas and beer for example.

The plant we work with in Colombia uses water from the Navado del Ruis (a volcano between Caldas and Tolima) and natural ethyl acetate from fermented sugarcane sourced in the southern region of Palmira, Colombia. This process begins with steaming of the coffee, increasing its porosity, beginning the hydrolysis of caffeine, which is usually bonded to salts and chlorogenic acid in the bean.

The beans are then submerged in an ethyl acetate solvent, until 97% of the caffeine is removed. A final steam is then used to lift residual traces of the compound. The ultimate residue which remains is ≥ 30 ppm, which is a level dramatically less than that of a banana!

 

Risaralda

This coffee comes from a collection of producers around the municipality of Santuario in the department of Risaralda, part of Colombia’s Eje Cafetero (Coffee Axis). Farms in this region sit between roughly 1,400 and 2,000 metres above sea level, where steep terrain, fertile volcanic soils, and consistent rainfall create conditions well suited to Arabica cultivation.

Coffee production in Risaralda is dominated by smallholder farms, many only a few hectares in size. Over the past fifty years the region has experienced significant economic and political shifts that have shaped how coffee is produced and sold. The collapse of the International Coffee Agreement in 1989 exposed Colombian farmers to far greater price volatility, while internal conflict across rural Colombia disrupted agricultural communities and rural investment throughout the 1990s and early 2000s.

Smallholders have increasingly had to adapt to fluctuating prices, rising input costs, and greater competition in international markets - volatility that can make accessing finance and planning your seasons challenging. In many cases this has meant selling parchment coffee through local intermediaries, with limited access to specialty buyers or direct feedback on quality.