La Serranía Decaf is grown along an isolated set of mountains within the central cordillera of the Andes that go through Pitalito, Acevedo, Palestina, Timaná, & Suaza. This coffee represents the work of more than 50 producers who are committed to quality & excellence. La Serrania is carefully hand-sorted & processed at each individual farm, with special attention paid to the drying process to ensure consistency, uniformity, & a clean cup profile. La Serranía Decaf is a Natural EA Decaf Coffee, processed at the Descafecol plant in Manizales. The decaffeination process at this plant uses ethyl acetate derived 100% from sugar cane mixed with mountain water, together removing 99.7% of the caffeine present. The beauty of the Natural EA process is that it helps preserve most of the original flavors of the coffee while adding fruity notes & some complexity to the cup. With notes of vanilla, berries, banana & watermelon. It has a soft acidity & a long aftertaste, it's definitely not your regular decaf! Sugar cane ethyl acetate (EA) decaf is a natural process of decaffeinating coffee. It is usually found in Colombia where sugar cane is readily available & starts with making molasses from sugar cane. Once created, it sits in vats to ferment. The bacteria produce acetic acid, much like fermenting coffee, & at the peak of fermentation, alcohol is added to make something called ethyl acetate. For it to be applied to coffee first, the green coffee is steamed in tanks to elevate the moisture level — the beans swell, which allows the extraction of caffeine. Ethyl acetate is added to the mixture, & it dissolves the caffeine in the coffee. The coffee is then washed with water & laid to dry. In theory, the coffee should reach the same moisture content as it arrived in, which is somewhere between 11-12%. The most important part of EA coffee, & why it tastes so sweet, is it avoids high pressure & high heat, which degrades coffee quickly. This allows the natural terroir flavors to come through, making it a sweet & bright decaf.