Decaffeinated Indonesian Sumatra Royal Select SWP

Burman Coffee Traders

Details

Origin

Indonesia

Process

Wet-Hulled, Swiss Water

Roast Suitability

Description

This Sumatra Swiss Water Decaf Green Coffee is a Royal Select lot drawn from smallholder farms across the Aceh and North Sumatra provinces of Indonesia. No single estate sits behind it. The component lots were picked on cup profile, physical preparation and how well each one looked likely to hold up once the caffeine came out, and harvest arrives in two windows, October through January and again April through June. The farms sit between 1200 and 1700 masl on volcanic loam. On the Aceh side that means the Gayo highlands, an arabica belt with its own geographical indication registered in 2009. On the North Sumatra side it means the country around Lake Toba, where Lintong, Simalungun and Mandailing each hold indications of their own. Indonesia is the fourth largest coffee producer in the world, and up here it grows on small family plots. Varieties are the local typica and catimor selections planted through these hills for generations. Processing is giling basah, the wet-hulled method: cherry is pulped and fermented briefly, the parchment dries only part of the way, and the bean is hulled while still soft at around 30 to 35 percent moisture, then dried a second time down to export moisture. It is a practical answer to a climate that will not hand you weeks of steady sun, and it is where the low acidity and the heavy body come from. Decaffeination happens afterward in Delta, British Columbia, with water, temperature and time. The green coffee is hydrated so the beans swell, then circulated in green coffee extract, a water solution already loaded with coffee solubles, so caffeine migrates out while the flavor compounds stay put. Carbon filters strip the caffeine back out of the extract, the extract returns to the loop, and the coffee is re-dried at low temperature. No solvents at any stage. Tasting Notes: Two things shape this cup before you ever roast it. Wet hulling lowers the acidity and builds the body, and the decaf process rounds the edges off a little further, so w