Origin: Guatemala

Region: Aldea Santa Rosalía, Esquipulas Municipality, Chiquimula Department
MASL: 1200
Producer: Finca Las Marias
Variety: Catuai, Catucai
Process: washed, Swiss Water Decaf

La Planta Coffee Estates was established by Mario Rolando Solis in 1966. He was the first to plant coffee in the municipality of Esquipulas, Chiquimula Department. After his passing in 2018, the estate was divided into three and renamed by his successors. Finca Las Marias is one of these farms owned by his daughter, Maria del los Angeles Solis Paiz and managed by her husband, Erick Toledo. We met Erick in 2019 during a coffee evaluation certification course, and what started as sharing cupping notes grew into a long-term coffee relationship. We’ve worked with Finca Las Marias since 2020, using one of their lots as a blend component for Short Strand. We like this washed coffee so much that we thought, why not make it decaf?

We sent this coffee to Swiss Water, where the green coffee is meticulously cleaned and hydrated with pure water before it’s introduced to Green Coffee Extract (GCE)—a liquid crafted from clean water and water-soluble solids found in green coffee, excluding caffeine. The caffeine migrates from the bean to the GCE due to an imbalance in caffeine content. This process, completed within ten hours, results in a coffee that is 99.9% caffeine-free. This decaf coffee is sweet and easy-going and pairs with almost anything. We pick up notes of caramel, pecan, and cocoa powder.