Peru is the 7th largest coffee producing country in the world. The specialty of the coffees grown here is made up of many factors: perhaps the most important is that a significant part of the farms are micro-lots, i.e. smaller than 3 hectares. These farms are family owned , i.e. the "fair trade" movement was one of the first to reach Peru.
Only Arabica varieties are grown , due to the high mountains, in areas that are higher than average. Since coffees grown in higher areas have a lower caffeine content, the idea arose to ask for decaffeinated green coffee from Peruvian coffee . Our decaffeinated coffee comes from the Cajamarca region of Peru and has been decaffeinated using a chemical-free CO2 process .
But how does this procedure work ? During carbon dioxide decaffeination of coffee, cleaned green (ie not yet roasted) coffee beans are soaked in water and then placed in a pressure chamber. Extremely high pressure (up to 100-300 BAR) and a temperature of nearly 70°C, known as supercritical carbon dioxide, are then pumped into the chamber. Supercritical carbon dioxide is an excellent solvent and dissolves up to 99% of the caffeine from the coffee beans during the 5-7 hours of soaking.
Once the decaffeination has taken place, the coffee is dried, roasted and packaged. And best of all, carbon dioxide decaffeination is not only chemical-free, but also sustainable . The carbon dioxide containing the caffeine molecules is cleaned: when mixed with water, the caffeine dissolves from the CO2, making it usable again to decaffeinate the next batch of coffee. The remaining caffeinated water is used in the production of other products (such as soft drinks or medicines).
