DECAF - Ethiopia Heirloom - Washed KVW MC

ABOUT THIS COFFEE:

Ethiopia Among coffee-producing countries, Ethiopia holds near-legendary status not only because itÕs the ÒbirthplaceÓ of Arabica coffee, but also because it is simply unlike every other place in the coffee world. Unlike the vast majority of coffee-growing countries, the plant was not introduced as a cash crop through colonization. Instead, growing, processing, and drinking coffee is part of the everyday way of life, and has been for centuries since the trees were discovered growing wild in forests and eventually cultivated for household use and commercial sale. The majority of EthiopiaÕs farmers are smallholders and sustenance farmers, with less than 1 hectare of land apiece. In many cases, it is almost more accurate to describe these farms as Òcoffee gardensÓ as the trees do sometimes grow in more of a garden or forest environment than what we imagine fields of farmland to look like. There are some large privately owned estates, as well as co-operative societies comprising a mix of small and more mid-size farms, but the average producer here grows relatively very little for commercial sale. This decaffeination process used for these beans is an indirect solvent process known as KVW MC. The KVW MC process first uses hot water to extract caffeine and other solubles from the coffee seeds, and then the seeds are removed from the water. Methylene chloride (MC) is then added to the water solution, where it bonds with the caffeine molecule; because MC is not miscible with water, it is easily removed from the solution along with the bonded caffeine. Once the caffeine has been removed, the coffee seeds are re-submerged in their original solute where they absorb their original soluble compounds. The United States Food and Drug Administration has stated that MC is safe for use in decaffeination processes, and is harmless to humans in consumption of 10 parts per million (ppm) or less. Coffee decaffeinated using this method has been shown to contain a fraction of that safe amount. This coffee was processed in the EU which has an even stricter standard. Through breathing air in virtually any city or suburb, humans ingest 20 times more MC in a single day than the MC present in a cup of MC deaffeinated coffee.