The Swiss Water Process has removed 99.9% of the caffeine from this flavorful, Grade A organic coffee sourced from Peru—but these medium-bodied beans still know how to party! Enter a fiesta unique as a pink donkey, where cherry, berry, currant, and nutmeg flavors mix and mingle. What else can we say, other than the fact we just made decaf cool again!
Cupping Notes: Cherry, raspberry, blueberry, red currant, clove, nutmeg.
Barista Notes: This gourmet coffee is so naturally, fruit-flavored it can be enjoyed without any added flavorings. It can even replace your favorite tea before bedtime.
Chef Notes: Great for all cooking occasions without the caffeinated hype. Recommended for after-dinner desserts and child-friendly dishes.
Pink Donkey Overview (Swiss Water Process)
If you’re looking to enjoy the taste of good quality coffee without the attendant caffeine buzz, decaf coffee might be the perfect drink for you. While there are many ways to skin the proverbial cat when it comes to removing the caffeine factor from coffee, the Swiss Water Process is a chemical-free way of removing caffeine from coffee beans.
It is a water-only strategy for caffeine removal yields higher quality and taste than other decaffeination mechanisms that can reduce the body and flavor. The tradeoff for this gentle caffeine removal that leaves quality intact is that the Swiss Water Process takes longer and is more expensive, resulting in a steeper-priced bottom line for customers...although it’s definitely worth it.
First, the milled, unroasted green coffee beans are soaked in hot water, which initiates a release of caffeine and solids (essentially natural flavoring) into the water. The water becomes saturated with soluble compounds (able to dissolve into water), with the exception of caffeine. The beans are then thrown out, and the remaining saturated liquid is sent through a carbon filter that filters out the caffeine while allowing the coffee solids to pass through, resulting in an extract known as GCE (green coffee extract).
This extract is used to decaffeinate a new round of green coffee beans, and it works like this: when the new round of green coffee beans is soaked in hot water infused with GCE, the compounds that produce flavor are in equilibrium already (they’re in the water and in the beans), meaning that they don’t diffuse out into the water. Only the caffeine gets diffused, and the decaffeinated beans can be collected for roasting. The GCE can be passed through the carbon filter again to remove the caffeine, enabling it to be reused.
This process is repeated until the coffee has only 0.1% caffeine left (that’s ten percent of one percent). By this time, the beans are dry and the Swiss Water Process has left the majority of their flavour intact, resulting in better tasting decaf coffee.
Swiss Water Decaf is a great alternative to caffeinated coffee, especially if you’re looking to reduce caffeine consumption without losing out on the enjoyment of a good cup of joe. Furthermore, coffee has been linked to certain health benefits that you can continue to enjoy by drinking decaf, without having to give them up by quitting coffee entirely.
