One more decaf...

I found two different decaf offerings at Coffee Bean Corral. The first decaf is from Costa Rica- from the Tres Rios region and is decaffeinated using the SWP (Swiss Water Process). I mentioned it in the last post.

The other sample I bought from Coffee Bean Corral was a Brazil decaf they called Sul de Minas. It's from the area of Sul de Minas - literally "the south of Minas" - in the state of Minas Gerais. The state is just north of Rio and Sao Paulo (you may be able to see them in the map below).

 

Decaffeination was done using Royal Select's MWP (Mountain Water Process). MWP is a competing technology for the patented Swiss Water Process caffeine removal. MWP leaves the greens so dark they appear to be already roasted. But the results are comparable to SWP-processed beans. The only apparent difference is the very dark color of the unroasted beans making the start of the roast a little tricky- that's when the beans start to dry and I expect to see specific color changes from green thru yellow to tan then gradually to brown. Hard to make out with these beans since they start out already dark.

Another difference I noticed in the roasted beans is the the color of MWP-processed beans is not quite as dark as those processed using SWP... counterintuitive since they start out darker. Also the sheen of the roasted MWP beans is a little more glossy resembling the sheen of non-decaffeinated beans. Not so with SWP processed beans  which tend to be very 'flat'. Neither of these differences seems to affect the taste of the roasted beans.

Very nice cup of coffee that is distinctly sweet. I was pretty happy with the result. Well... except there was no 'chocolate bomb' hiding there to put a grin on my face!

I came across a Sul de Minas offering from Sweet Maria's a year or more ago. As I recall the name identifies a coffee competition that is very important to the region.