Artisanal vs. Industrial Decaffeination
By Lorena Amgwerd, Customer Experience Specialist
What if I told you a decaf coffee won the 2024 US Brewers Cup Championship?
I'll admit it.
For a long time, I thought decaf was simply the compromise. You chose it because you wanted less caffeine, knowing you'd probably sacrifice some flavour along the way.
Then I started working at ViCAFE.
The more conversations I had with our Swiss Roasting Champion and food scientist Christoph Meier, the more I realised something surprising:
Decaf itself was never the issue.
Whether a coffee is industrially or artisanally decaffeinated, both approaches have their place. What fascinated me was discovering how different decaffeination methods influence what eventually ends up in the cup.
That realisation completely changed the way I think about caffeine-free coffee, and it's exactly why I wanted to learn more about our Los Nogales Decaf.
It all starts in Colombia
Every coffee tells a story long before it reaches our roastery in Zurich.
Ours begins at Finca Los Nogales, where the Arrayán lot sits 1,770 metres above sea level. Around 6,000 Caturra trees grow there in a unique location that's naturally protected from the intense midday sun while still receiving plenty of warm afternoon light.
When Christoph explained why that matters, it suddenly made perfect sense.
The slower coffee cherries ripen, the more time they have to develop sugars and aromatic complexity. That gives the coffee enormous potential. Our role as roasters is to carefully unlock that potential, highlighting the sweetness, balance and character that have been developing since the coffee was still on the tree. In other words, exceptional coffee isn't created only during roasting. It's grown.
That was my first lesson.
If you want to produce an outstanding decaf, you first need an outstanding coffee.
Before the caffeine is removed
One thing that surprised me most was how much care goes into the coffee before decaffeination even begins.
Only perfectly ripe cherries are hand-picked before being floated in water to separate any underripe or defective fruit.
The selected cherries ferment naturally for 24 hours before being carefully washed.
They then dry slowly on raised beds under the Colombian sun before the parchment is removed, leaving carefully prepared Excelso green coffee.
By this stage, the coffee already has incredible potential.
The challenge now isn't creating flavour.
It's protecting it.
Before learning about Los Nogales, I also discovered there isn't just one way to remove caffeine. In a previous blog post, our COO Pascal explored the unique Swiss CR3 decaffeination process, which uses subcritical CO₂ at comparatively low temperatures and pressures to better preserve the coffee's original character. Instead of relying on the extremely high temperatures and pressures used in supercritical CO₂ systems, the coffee is washed at around 23°C and 70-80 bar. The lower temperature and pressure help preserve more of the coffee's original character, although the process takes considerably longer, sometimes up to seven days. Reading about this made me realise that decaffeination isn't simply about removing caffeine. It's about doing so while protecting everything that makes great coffee taste like great coffee.
So how do you remove caffeine without removing everything else?
At Los Nogales, the process is slow and remarkably thoughtful.
The carefully prepared Excelso green coffee is first immersed in hot water at 40°C for four hours. This step is repeated in two consecutive cycles. Afterwards, a natural must - derived from the coffee's own pulp and husk - is added, where the beans soak for another 24 hours.
The beans are then carefully washed to remove any remaining residues before drying again for approximately five days.
Reading through the producer's documentation, one thing stood out to me: every stage follows a clearly defined sequence. Nothing about the process feels rushed. Every step receives the time it needs before the next begins.
What does decaf actually mean?
Decaf coffee is never completely caffeine-free. By law, only very small traces of caffeine may remain, meaning the coffee retains its character while containing only a fraction of the caffeine found in a regular cup.
Industrial versus artisanal
Learning about this process also helped me understand the different philosophies behind industrial and artisanal decaffeination.
Industrial processes are designed to decaffeinate large quantities of coffee consistently and efficiently. Depending on the method, they often rely on higher temperatures, increased pressure or specialised solvents to remove caffeine at scale while maintaining reliable quality.
Artisanal approaches begin with a different priority: preserving as much of the coffee's original character as possible. They often favour slower processing, carefully controlled conditions and continuous observation throughout the journey.
Neither approach is inherently better. They simply optimise for different goals.
What fascinated me was seeing how many small decisions influence the final flavour in the cup.
As someone who spends most of her time thinking about customer experience, I find that idea fascinating.
Sometimes the best results don't come from doing something faster.
They come from giving something the time it deserves.
And what does all that taste like?
That's the part that matters most.
The first time I tasted our Los Nogales Farm Decaf, I honestly forgot I was drinking a decaf coffee.
It has a natural sweetness, a creamy, round body and a lively acidity that keeps everything beautifully balanced.
As it cools, the flavours continue to evolve.
Chocolate.
Fresh raspberry.
Even a playful tutti-frutti note.
Those notes weren't just my imagination either. They closely match the producer's own quality profile, which describes a naturally sweet coffee with a round body, balanced acidity and vibrant fruit notes.
Please note: Tasting coffee is a personal experience. The flavour notes you perceive may differ from someone else's, and that's part of the beauty of specialty coffee. :)
I especially enjoy it as a flat white, where the chocolate becomes wonderfully creamy while the fruit still shines through. But as an espresso, it's just as exciting.
And I'm clearly not the only one who's been surprised.
In 2024, Weihong Zhang won the US Brewers Cup Championship using a decaffeinated Typica from Finca Los Nogales. Describing it as "the best decaf coffee we have ever tasted," the victory became an important milestone for specialty coffee, showing that decaf can compete at the very highest level. It was a reminder that exceptional coffee isn't defined by its caffeine content, but by the quality and care behind every bean.
What I took away
Working at ViCAFE has completely changed how I think about decaffeination.
I used to see it simply as the step where caffeine disappears.
Now I understand it as part of a much longer value chain of flavour.
Every decision along the way matters. From how the coffee is grown, harvested and fermented to the way caffeine is removed and finally how the coffee is roasted. None of these steps exists in isolation.
Individually, they seem like small decisions.
Together, they become the cup you're drinking.
Our Los Nogales Decaf reminded me that great coffee isn't defined by its caffeine content.
It's defined by the countless thoughtful decisions made by people throughout the journey, all with one shared goal:
Creating a coffee that's simply delicious.
Thanks for reading along, and I'll see you at the next cup.
Lorena
Further Reading
- Guter Kaffee braucht keinen Wachmacher – Pascal, ViCAFE (learn more about the Swiss CR3 subcritical CO₂ decaffeination process)
- Decaf Typica wins 2024 US Brewers Cup: Specialty coffee is changing its opinion – Perfect Daily Grind
- Finca Los Nogales – Caturra Decaf Traceability (producer documentation)
Taste it
- Farm Low Caf Colombia Finca Los Nogales 350g for CHF 21.50 order online on our webshop vicafe.ch
- Decaf Colombia Finca Los Nogales 350g for CHF 12.40 order online on our webshop vicafe.ch
