Uteuzi Jimbo is Swahili for "county select," and is a Regional Select program designed to highlight the different coffee-growing counties of Kenya in which Cafe Imports primarily works: Nyeri, Embu, Muranga, and Kirinyaga. These coffees are traceable down to the region, and are created by blending lots from different factories in each area, basis the cup quality and profile. We have had a long relationship with our friends at Cafe Imports. Although we do a lot of direct sourcing and trade, we believe Cafe Imports does some of the best large scale coffee sourcing and green coffee buying. We really enjoy the work Cafe Imports puts into their coffee buying programs and we want to show our support. A true dark roast. Dark & Cozy is that comfy dark roast coffee that is easy to sip on. It is perfect with cream and/or sugar as well as just drinking it black, if that is how you roll. The level of the roast really breaks through the thickness of the milk or creamer, giving it that perfect coffee taste that we all want. When looking for what coffee to use, our main priority is to find a coffee with high density and a good amount of sweetness. The density of the coffee will be able to hold up in the roaster and not get burnt with the level of roast we are doing. Having enough sweetness is also good so that we can keep the coffee balanced even with a darker roast. We roast this coffee up until we enter the second crack for about 15 seconds, give or take. This will allow us to get all the benefits and flavors of that dark roast without damaging the bean too much or getting to the point where we are actually burning the bean. At this point in the roast, oils within the bean will begin to migrate to the surface due to the bean being much more porous from the heat. We finish the batch of coffee just before this starts to happen so that when the coffee is done, it doesn't become too oily in the packaging. Even at such a dark roast there is a lot of thought that goes into how we roast it. This coffee has been a staple at our roastery for awhile now. It has gotten us through many early mornings and late nights of roasting. We hope you enjoy Dark & Cozy. When it comes to decaf, there is no better way to process decaf coffee than Ethyl Acetate. We believe this process to be the best natural way to decaffeinate a coffee without taking away from the flavor or the structural integrity of the bean. Swiss Water Process is another natural way to decaffeinate coffee, however this process damages the structure of the beans in a way that greatly affects the quality and flavor of the coffee. One other well-known way of decaffeinating coffee is Methylene Chloride. This process uses chemicals not only harms the coffee but probably not good for your health either. Below is a quick explanation of the process provided by Cafe Imports. Ethyl Acetate (E.A.) – This naturally occurring ester (present in bananas as well as a by-product of fermented sugars) can be isolated and used as a solvent to bond with and remove caffeine from green coffee. First, the coffee is sorted and steamed for 30 minutes under low pressure in order to open the coffee seeds’ pores and prepare them for decaffeination. The coffee is placed in a solution of both water and ethyl acetate, where the E.A. will begin to bond with the salts of chlorogenic acids inside the seeds. The tank will be drained and re-filled over the course of eight hours until the caffeine is no longer detected. The seeds are steamed once more to remove the ethyl acetate traces, though E.A. is only harmful to humans in very high quantities (400 parts per million or more). The coffee is then dried and polished for export.