Often considered a four-letter word amongst Baristas and patrons alike, decaf has had a bad rap for a long time. For the most part, its poor reputation has been deserved however this is slowly changing. For a while now there has been a chemical-free method to remove the caffeine from the green beans. This method originated in Switzerland in the 1930’s and is aptly called ‘The Swiss-Water Decaffeination Process’. In a nutshell, the process goes like this…

A batch of green (unroasted) beans is soaked in hot water, releasing caffeine. When all the caffeine and coffee solids are released into the water, the beans are discarded and the water is passed through a carbon filter that traps caffeine but lets the coffee solids pass through. The resulting solution, called “flavour-charged” water is then put into a similar filtration device, and new coffee beans are added. Since the flavour-charged water cannot remove any of the coffee solids from the new beans, only the caffeine is released. The process repeats, filtering out all the caffeine until the beans are 99.9% caffeine free. These beans are removed and dried, and manage to retain most if not all of their flavour and smell. In fact the only change in flavour is due to the absence of the caffeine which has a natural bitter flavour.

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Roasting coffee at first seems deceptively easy. Pop some raw, green beans into an oven and in a little while, take them out all brown and roasted. In fact, roasting coffee is a developing science and far more complex than it first appears.

The aim of a Master Roaster is to produce coffee that has been roasted to an ideal flavour point. This is a point at which the flavour has developed sufficiently to create a complex balance of body and intensity with a bittersweet chocolaty character. It’s a tricky undertaking and requires that the roaster taste the coffee constantly. Too light a roast and the coffee will taste grassy and hemp-like. Too dark and it begins to lose its natural sweetness as the sugars are caramelized. If it is roasted even darker still, it actually turns the natural wood-fibre in the beans (cellulose) into charcoal. This results in a charred, ashy and very unpleasant espresso.

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The smooth, sweet and syrupy elixir that we know as espresso is actually the end result of a long and complex journey from crop to cup. There are two main species of coffee tree – Arabica and Robusta. Arabica is grown in higher altitude regions and makes up about 70% of the worlds production, while the under-rated Robusta is more commonly used as a booster for some espresso blends or for making instant coffee. It is the cherries from these trees that provide the stepping off point for our journey.

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