About Our Beans
Colombian Supremo
Our Lite Roast bean
Colombia is the second-largest producer of coffee in the world and the largest producer of washed Arabica coffee. It’s well known for the high quality its coffees, and about half of its exports come to the United States. Colombia exports approximately 12.5 million bags, and internal consumption is about 2 million bags annually.
There are three primary varieties grown in Colombia, and coffee is referred to by the region it was grown in. This particular type is Supremo; this word is a coffee grading term in Colombia. Supremo beans are slightly larger than Excelso beans and are a screen size of 17 and 18. This type is the largest bean size for Colombian coffee. Supremo and Excelso coffee beans may be harvested from the same tree and are later sorted by size.
Brazilian Santos
Our Dark Roast bean
About one-third of all of the world’s coffee is grown in Brazil, and much of Brazil’s premium coffee is labeled Santos after the port it is shipped through. Brazil is the largest exporter in the world, supplying approximately 60% of the world’s coffee – this is due in part to the sheer size of the country. While Brazil is a prolific exporter, it’s average elevation for coffee production is only about 1,100 meters. This qualifies most of it as High Grown Coffee (900-1,200 meters), but some crops certainly fall below that threshold.
Many high quality espresso blends are made from either Bourbon Santos or Brazil Cerrado due to the ability of Brazilian coffees to take dark roasts without turning overly bitter. This is due in part to the mild, balance flavor of Brazilian coffee beans.
Decaf: Swiss Water Process
The Swiss Water Process uses Green Coffee Extract (GCE) for the caffeine extraction mechanism. Green Coffee Extract is a solution containing the water-soluble components of green coffee except for the caffeine. The process relies on the stability of the soluble components of the GCE and the gradient pressure difference between the GCE (which is caffeine lean) and the green coffee (which is caffeine-rich). This gradient pressure causes the caffeine molecules to migrate from the green coffee into the GCE. Because GCE is saturated with the other water-soluble components of green coffee only the caffeine molecule migrates to the GCE; the other water-soluble coffee elements are retained in the green coffee.
Once the GCE is rich with caffeine it is then percolated through carbon absorbers which attract the caffeine molecule from the GCE while leaving other green coffee elements intact in the GCE. When the GCE is once again lean of caffeine it is then used to remove additional caffeine from the green coffee. This is a continuous batch process that takes 8–10 hours to meet the final residual decaffeinated target.