Description

San Lorenzo – Colombia

This coffee is taken to the Descafecol Decaf plant that does the Sugar Cane decaf process, where every batch of coffee is independently processed to keep its complete traceability and superb quality. San Lorenzo is an indigenous reserve located in the western part of Caldas, near the town of Riosucio. The indigenous people of the region are part of the Embera Cham indigenous people of Colombia, where 12,600 of them live in the 21 veredas of San Lorenzo.
This community has a very particular way of operating, since in Colombia there can be an indigenous ruling above the traditional governmental ruling applied to the rest of Colombia; hence the land of San Lorenzo can only be sold to people who are part of the Embera Cham tribe. This particular law has created lots of nano-lots, where growers can own 5 different lots that add up to just 1 hectare. This community seeks to protect and conserve the water sources, animals, and nature in general. Following the indigenous laws, not everyone can freely access San Lorenzo, since part of the way they take care of their culture and nature is by not allowing people that are not part of their community. However, companies that work with the community are allowed to visit the area. Historically they have had a lot of guerilla warfare in the region they are located. Not only did the FARC have a presence in their region, but the M-19 and paramilitares had constant disputes for domination of the territory; giving the town and region a violent past. Since 2015, when the peace treaty was signed, the amount of conflict in the area has almost vanished completely, making San Lorenzo a calm area.

SAN LORENZO COFFEE:
The San Lorenzo coffee is very well rounded and has a very consistent profile throughout the years. A big part of its tasting profile can be attributed to the way the growers take care of the land, where they not only believe in getting an income from the land - coffee - but also giving back to nature to enrich the ecosystem. San Lorenzo has a big altitude difference, where the town and a few farms are located at 1,300masl, but most of the coffee producing farms are around 1,600-2,050masl. The processing of the coffee is what growers call standard processing, that implies between 12-18 hours of fermentation depending on the weather.

THE COOP:
The San Lorenzo area makes part of the Cooperativa de caficultores del alto occidente de Caldas. This Coop has a purchase point in the town, where growers can sell their coffee and purchase fertilizers and other coffee-related products. The Cooperative is an associative, non-profit, multi-active, limited liability company with a variable and unlimited number of members and social capital, and indefinite duration. It operates under the control of the National Superintendency of Solidarity Economy, and its main office is located in the municipality of Riosucio (Caldas). Its objective is to efficiently distribute goods or services jointly to meet the needs of its members and the community in general.

SugarCane Decaf Process
The coffee first undergoes steaming at low pressures to remove the silver skins before then being moistened with hot water to allow the beans to swell and soften. This then prepares the coffee for the hydrolysis of caffeine, which is attached to the salts of the chlorogenic acid within the coffee. The extractors (naturally obtained from the fermentation of sugar cane and not from chemical synthesis) are then filled with moistened coffee which is washed several times with the natural ethyl acetate solvent, to reduce the caffeine down to the correct levels. Once this process is finished the coffee then must be cleaned of the remaining ethyl acetate by using a flow of low pressured saturated steam, before moving onto the final steps. From here the coffee is sent to vacuum drying drums where the water previously used to moisten the beans is removed and the coffee dried to between 10-12%. The coffee is then cooled quickly to ambient temperature using fans before the final step of carnauba wax being applied to polish and provide the coffee with protection against environmental conditions and to help provide stability. From here, the coffee is the packed into 70kg bags ready for export.

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