FEDESI FW Organic MW Decaf

The Federación De Sociedades Cooperativas Cafetaleras De La Sierra Madre Fc De Rl (FEDESI) was founded in 2015 out of 6 cooperatives in Mexico. These 6 cooperatives, Café de Altura Hoja Blanca, Unión de Comunidades Solidarias (UCOSOL), Las Abejas Mayas, Comunidades Cafetaleras de Siltepec (COCAFE), Unión de Cafetaleros de la Sierra Siltepec and PRODECAFE (Promoviendo el Desarrollo de las Comunidades Cafetaleras de la Sierra Madre) represent a total of 2,990+ producers who live and farm in Chiapas, Mexico. The federation aims to help farmers reach new markets and garner better prices for their coffees. Their farms are small, about 2.5 hectares on average and sit at 1,200 to 1,700 meters above sea level. Members of FEDESI receive technical assistance and training in Good Agricultural Practices to help them improve their productivity and coffee quality. Farmers can also access prefinancing for their coffee crop.

This coffee has been decaffeinated using the Mountain Water Process. Mountain Water processing offers an alternative to consumers concerned by methyl chloride (MC) and ethyl acetate (EA) processes. Because water processing does not use added chemical compounds, coffees can maintain organic certifications and customers can be assured of the absence of additional chemicals. 

Since farms are small, most farm work is done by the family. Farmers selectively handpick ripe, red cherry and process it on their farms. They float their cherry to remove any underripes. Then, they pulp cherry and ferment it in cement tanks for 10 to 16 hours. Some producers have plastic vats as well. Following fermentation, they wash parchment in clean water and lay it to dry on cement patios. They rake parchment frequently to ensure even drying. Its takes approximately 5 to 10 days for parchment to dry.  

Young consumers are driving decaf’s resurgence and, like their caffeine-drinking peers, they’re expecting high-quality coffees that are often traceable and certified. With more than 50% of the world’s population under 30, the demand for decaffeinated coffee – and the need for specialty decaf that tastes good and meets ethical or environmental standards – is rising. 

Mountain Water process offers an alternative to consumers concerned by methyl chloride (MC) and ethyl acetate (EA) processes. Because water processing does not use added chemical compounds, coffees can maintain organic certifications and customers can be assured of the absence of additional chemicals. 

The difficulty of decaffeination is that many of the flavor compounds that give coffee its excellent taste are, like caffeine, water-soluble. Thus, any decaffeination method needs to effectively single out and remove the caffeine molecule while preserving as many of the flavor compounds as possible. 

The process begins with a batch of green coffee beans that are soaked in water to remove the caffeine. In water, many of the flavor compounds are also removed as well, but don’t worry! This is intentional and will preserve help flavor in the future. 

This first batch of beans are then discarded. This process only needs to happen once because the mixture produced by soaking those beans, called green coffee extract (GCE), can be maintained and reused to decaffeinate many batches of green beans. 

The principle behind water processing is that water can only absorb a set amount of flavor compounds and caffeine before it is completely saturated. When water is fully saturated, it cannot accept (and remove) any more flavor compounds, even if they’re in the coffee. That first batch of beans created a fully saturated water mixture, the GCE. In order to process the beans for decaffeination, the GCE is run through a filter to remove only the caffeine. 

Now the GCE is fully saturated except for caffeine. When a new batch of green beans are placed in the GCE, the only compound from the new beans that will be accepted into the GCE is caffeine, everything else will remain in the beans because the GCE is already saturated with those chemicals and unable to ‘take’ anymore.