What’s going on with Decaf?
Decaf: The Big Picture
There’s really no hiding it, the coffee market is crazy at the moment, and has been for the last couple of years! Multiple factors have all conspired together to cause a drop in supply and as a result a huge shift in demand for coffee. A lot of this we covered in our “What’s happening to the price of coffee” journal post.Â
But the question remains, what’s going on with decaf? and more specifically, what’s going on with decaf at Ethical Addictions? Well there’s bad news, alongside some fantastic news.Â
If you would rather watch a video of our Head Bean, Ian explaining it all you can do here:Â
The bad news
So, long story short, there is no more water processed decaf in the country for us to buy! This means that the Swiss water decaf that we have all very much enjoyed over the years is sadly no longer available. Theres a lot of reasons for this but the key ones are:
1. Low coffee yields over the past year has simply meant that farmers, traders and roasters have a greater need for their caffeinated beans so are sending less coffee to the decaffeination plants to be processed.
2. Decaf is trending! We have seen a spike in the number of people opting for decaf over caffeinated coffees, not just here in the UK but all over the world, especially in emerging economies like China and India where the population is drinking more coffee, this includes decaf, resulting in a drop in it’s availability.Â
3. More conscious drinkers. The general public are becoming more and more conscious of what they are consuming, and so we have in turn seen a shift away from the traditional decaffeination processes that use harsh chemicals, and towards more natural ways of decaffeinating coffee such as water or sugarcane processes.
Onto the Great News
Ok, so that’s the bad news. The great news is, in our opinion, better than what we have lost. We have always taken great pride in the way we source our coffee through direct-trade. It gives us perfect traceability of where our coffee has come from, as well as allowing us to join with our farmers and invest into their families and communities.Â
So the one thing that has stopped us being 100% Farm-Direct has been our decaf… until now! We have partnered with the Caixeta family in Minas Gerais, Brazil to ship some of our fantastic Vira Mao coffee to a water-process decaffeination plant in Europe, meaning in early 2026 we will officially have Farm-Direct water processed decaf (we are hoping it will be February.)Â
In the meantime....
That’s the long term solution, but the eagle-eyed among you will spot that there is an issue. What to do in the meantime whilst we are out of the Swiss water and awaiting the new Mountain Water Brazil?
Well, we are not willing to go to a chemical processed decaf even as an intermediate. For at home customers, we have a Sugarcane process Decaf Colombian coffee from the Popyan region of Colombia, and for our trade customers we have managed to source another slightly different sugarcane Colombian coffee that we have roasted slightly darker than the Popyan decaf, making it an ideal alternative for espresso machines in a cafe/restaurant environment.
What is Sugarcane Process
The Sugarcane decaf method exposes the green beans to water and steam in order to expand the cells of the bean before washing them with an Ethyl Acetate solution, which attracts and removes the caffeine. The Ethyl Acetate used in this process is a naturally obtained byproduct of the fermentation of sugar cane.
So that’s the summary of what’s going on with decaf: short term problem, long term absolutely fantastic news and we’ve managed to source a solution that gets us through this stop-gap period.Â
