The beauty of having a decaf plant "next door" at origin

Aug. 30, 2016
I'm back in the US after living in Rwanda for a year. Rwanda has some great coffee. So does Burundi. Artisan Coffee Imports will be trying to get some of it decaffeinated for our customers who long for those rare, high-quality decaf East Africans.

Meanwhile, this recent post from our friend Andy Newborn at IP Coffees shares important insights (well-known and understood here at Artisan) about why high-quality decaf East Africans are difficult to find. It is much more efficient to have the coffee located near the decaf plant. http://ipcoffees.com/drink-decaf-coffee/. Thanks Andy for helping the world who appreciates good decaf! I would like to know, though, how well these low elevation, Mexican (variety?) beans stack up against Rwandan Bourbon varieties grown at 1400 - 1600 meters on the shores of Lake Kivu.  Maybe we can arrange a face-off at a cupping some day!

Learn more about the "real" world of decaf. Take the SCAA's course RP104. The next session is next week - Sep. 6, with "yours truly" instructing!

[Author: Ruth Ann Church]

Decaf Option in Vietnam

April 18, 2016
The May issue of Coffee & Cocoa International came out today with our column on the decaf option in Vietnam. (Page 44 - 45.)

Pg. 44 - 45 in the May 2016 issue of Coffee & Coca International

My original text (CC&I's editors improved it).

Decaffeination Option in Vietnam

By Ruth Ann Church, Artisan Coffee Imports

Through a chance meeting with Will Frith (www.willfrith.com) at Roasters Guild retreat in August 2015, I learned about a new option in Asia for decaffeination. Thanks to Will’s travels and explorations in coffee in Vietnam, he was able to easily introduce me to a relatively new player in the decaffeination world: Hiang Kie Industries Limited (HKI). HKI began operations in 2007 and was the first decaffeination plant set up in the Long Thanh Industrial Zone in Dong Nai Province, Vietnam, (about an hour drive from Ho Chi Minh City). They process using methylene chloride (MC) for a solvent.

The company runs two decaffeination plants, one can handle smaller batches than the other. They process beans from all coffee regions: South America, Africa and Asia. The minimum batch size is 2.5 MT, or about 5,500 lbs., which is about 42x 60kg bags. What intrigued me about their service is their transparency. With relatively little effort, their sales representative answered my questions about process details and costs. It is a “direct” MC process, meaning the beans soak in the solvent, and then the solvent, with the caffeine, is removed. Of the different MC processes, this one has always been my favorite. It seems the simplest and “cleaner” than the indirect process. It seems to offer the best chance that original coffee bean is left intact as much as possible.

Hiang Kie offers two types of dryers. A drum dryer takes about eight hours to dry the coffee and a vacuum dryer takes about three hours. Total processing time about is about 14 to 16 hours depending on the type of beans.

I was eager, so Dinesh Bhojwani, Hiang Kie’ sales representative, arranged to send me three samples: a Colombian, a Brazilian and a Vietnamese Arabica. All were decaffeinated at Hiang Kie and they all cupped quite well. I admit I was surprised, having lived my entire “coffee life” believing Vietnam can only produce low-quality robustas. The Colombia was my favorite. It retained a lot of its acidity and fruity notes. The Brazil had typical earthiness and body of a Brazil natural. The Vietnamese Arabica had brilliant aroma with sweet cherry and dark chocolate. Admittedly, much of this amazing aroma was tempered in the brewed cup. But this decaf Vietnam still had smooth body and minimal bitterness in the aftertaste. So if you’ve been wondering whether to try decaffeination in Asia, HKI would certainly be worth considering.

Ruth Ann Church is President of Artisan Coffee Imports (www.ArtisanCoffeeImports.com), an importer and trader of specialty green decaffeinated coffee. She can be reached at rachurch@artisancoffeeimports.com. Artisan is now offering consulting at origin for work related to sustainability and impact assessment. Ruth Ann has advanced IDP training and is Q Grader (in the process of re-calibration). She is currently studying for a second master’s degree focused on the coffee value chain and sustainability at Michigan State University. http://artisancoffeeimports.com/about/

Roasters question: is great decaf really feasible?

"Is it really feasible for a roaster to offer a high-end decaf (i.e. Micro-lots/with certifications), when the demand for it is only part of an already small market segment (all decaf being 15% of total)?" This was on one of the great questions during the Q&A part of my co-presentation for the Roaster's Guild seminar on decaffeination at the SCAA conference in Anaheim. Reuben Mood of Signature Coffee was the "asker" and he was right on target -- this is also one of the most challenging and frequently asked questions I get as an importer of specialty green decaf.

My answer in brief, "niche marketing and niche pricing". One may ask a car manufacturer, "is it really feasible to sell an outrageously fast sports car with no room for luggage and only 1 passenger?" If your entire system is geared up to manufacture and sell low cost, high volume automobiles, it probably isn't feasible to add the high end, branded coup. But if your current business is selling high end SUVs (like Hummers), it might be a profitable expansion of your business to also sell high end sports cars. [Analogy; if you're already promoting high-end regular coffees that are selling for a premium, it won't take much to include high end decaf.]

To bring the analogy a little closer to home, I believe some crazy guys at Peet's wondered one day if they could build a franchise on coffee that costs $3 a cup instead of a $1 a cup. America was very used to $1/cup coffee. But here we are 15 years later with Starbucks on nearly every corner. They used marketing savvy and the let the consumer decide. The same will be true for decaf. Find a great decaf, promote it as premium and make sure you put a price on it that earns you, the roaster, a profit. Our data show that decaf consumers are extremely price elastic and loyal.

Stay tuned for the next question in this series...

Are decaf coffee drinkers tired of limited choice?

Dear Fellow Decaf Drinkers:
Is anyone else tired of walking into an inviting cafe only to find that their choice for a decaf coffee will be limited to one "house" option and that the folks behind the counter have no idea what the origin is. "It's a blend," they typically state.

The limited choice is just my pet peeve, I guess. The real issue is, do I get a coffee that tastes great? Since I'm what they call a "dual drinker", I know that the "regular" crowd can please their palatte whether they're craving a dark roasted Indonesian or a light and citrusy Ethiopian. And, that "house coffee", if it's regular and at a place that calls itself a "cafe", has a reasonable chance of tasting OK. Not so for a decaf drinker! Too often I'm reminded that we are an after-thought, a necessary evil to many cafe-owners.

Especially that cafe with the green, round label. NO decaf served after the morning rush! How absurd! Can we not think of alternatives like offering only SPECIALTY coffee drinks -- like the made to order espresso drinks or pour-over coffee?

The root of this problem -- cafe owners who just aren't thinking about their after-thoughts.

~ Ruth Ann