The Monkaaba group

Monkaaba was started in 2020 by Esnaider Ortega Gómez and Didier Ortega in San Agustín, in southern Huila. It began with six families working out of the family home, and by the 2025 harvest it was buying from around 80 families in the area, working from its own warehouse in town. The group is run by producers, and farmers in the area can bring their coffee in for a blind cupping and feedback whether or not they sell through Monkaaba. This decaf lot is a blend from 25 of those producers.

How sugarcane decaf works

Ethyl acetate is a compound that occurs naturally in ripening fruit, and for this method it is made by fermenting sugarcane. The green coffee is steamed and soaked so the beans swell, then washed repeatedly in an ethyl acetate solution that binds to the caffeine and carries it out. A final steaming removes what is left of the solvent before the beans are dried. The process is gentle on the coffee’s sugars, which is why E.A. decafs often taste sweeter than those made with older methods.

About Quo Coffee

Quo roasts in Skärhamn on the island of Tjörn, north of Gothenburg, in the old customs house by the guest harbour. The roastery buys on long-term relationships rather than one-off lots, and was one of the first partners in Belco’s programme to ship green coffee to Europe by sail.

Brewing it

Decaffeinated beans are drier and more brittle than regular green coffee, so they grind finer at the same setting and extract faster. Start one or two steps coarser than usual and a little cooler, around 92 °C, with 15 g of coffee to 250 g of water on a cone or flat-bottom dripper. It also works well in an AeroPress for an easy evening cup. A grinder with small, repeatable steps makes those corrections simple, which is where a hand grinder like the 1Zpresso X-Ultra earns its place.

Coffee details