COLOMBIA - ATUNKAA - NATURAL DECAF

Anserma is located in the western area of the department of Caldas. It is an agricultural center where the cultivation of coffee stands out.

The cooperative started operating in 1967. It has an extensive knowledge and experience in the commercialization of coffee, and the support of the National Federation of Coffee Growers of Colombia and the Departmental Committee of Coffee Growers of Caldas. It operates in the municipalities of: Anserma, Risaralda, San José, Belalcázar and Viterbo.

Its main purpose is the commercialization of coffee and other agricultural products seeking to promote and improve the economic, social, technical and cultural conditions of the associates, as long as as these are linked to the agricultural activity and especially to the production of coffee in all its areas.

The cooperative has 2,083 associated coffee growers who cultivate excellent quality coffee with dedication and passion. Amongst coffee they also grow crops like sugarcane and bananas to sell for income.

The Cooperative with the new General Manager Luis Miguel have looked to embrace technology and the shift towards specialty coffee production. They have been building temperature controlled areas in the warehouse for looking after the micro lots that the producers deliver. As well as this at the cooperative they have started to experiment with producing naturals for the first time without putting the risk on the producer.

The cooperative invested in a Nuna Coffee drying box that can regulate the temperature and the humidity too dry the coffee to initially create a proof of concept to produce naturals which proved successful.

The cooperative now has a wet mill where they can receive and process cherry from the local producers. The coffee is delivered and is then screened with a new colour sorter for cherry that can screen 16 tons per hour. From here the coffee is then floated and placed into green baskets to rest for 10 - 12 hours.

The coffee is then taken to a mechanical silo where they start to dry it slowly without moving the coffee. Once the moisture has reduced they then begin to move the coffee in the silo's. In total in takes about 100 hours to dry the coffee from start to finish.

The coffee is then packed in grain pro in the parchment and they then mill it to be made ready for export.

The Sugar Cane 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 35kg bags ready for export.