Colombia and decaf – two words we can definitely get used to seeing together.
This coffee comes from Cauca – a region stretching from Colombia's Pacific coast up to the high Andes, reaching the border with Huila, another well-known coffee region. Cauca's high altitude and nutrient-rich volcanic soils create conditions for bright and vibrant coffees – qualities that the ethyl acetate decaffeination process used here successfully preserves and enhances.
The coffee is also part of Cloud Picker's By Sail selection – an initiative developed by Belco in France with a rather simple but ambitious idea: significantly reducing transport emissions by carrying coffee containers to Europe on specially designed cargo ships powered by wind instead of fossil fuels.
The decaffeination itself is carried out in Colombia. Ethyl acetate is a compound naturally found in various fruits and can be derived from fermented sugar, which is why this method is often described as a more natural approach to decaffeination. The coffee is soaked in water and ethyl acetate, which binds to compounds in the bean, allowing the caffeine to be extracted. The beans are then steam-treated to remove residual solvent.
Behind the export is Racafe – the same Colombian team thanks to whom Cloud Picker recently introduced Vianí. The company has been exporting Colombian coffee for 70 years, and in recent years has created its own sustainability standard called Crecer, which encourages and makes visible farmers' good practices.
All coffees Racafe supplies to Cloud Picker come from producers meeting this standard. A premium is added to the price of the coffee, which is used entirely to finance environmental, social, and economic improvements on the farms. Crecer covers everything from biodiversity, soils, and pesticide use to wastewater management, fermentation, drying, food security, and working conditions.
