Organic, Fairtrade decaffeinated coffee from Peru, roasted in Normandy by Les Torréfacteurs Normands. Whole bean.
We sell this coffee in two forms. This is the whole bean version; there is also a ground one.
Buy the beans if you have a grinder — and this is why
The difference is larger than most people expect, and it is not a matter of taste or ceremony.
Coffee's aroma comes from several hundred volatile compounds, and they escape the moment the cell structure is broken. Grinding multiplies the exposed surface area enormously — ground coffee loses most of its aromatics within a couple of weeks, and a meaningful amount within the first hour.
Whole beans keep those compounds locked in until you break them. A bag of beans opened a month ago and ground that morning will make a better cup than a bag of ground coffee opened a week ago. That is the entire argument, and it is a strong one.
If you do not have a grinder, buy the ground version and buy it in small quantities — which is the honest advice rather than upselling you a machine.
How the caffeine is removed — and why organic matters here specifically
Solvent methods, using methylene chloride or ethyl acetate, are the cheapest and most common. They strip flavour compounds along with the caffeine, and they are the reason decaf has a reputation for tasting thin.
The Swiss Water process uses only water, temperature and activated carbon filters: beans are soaked to draw out caffeine and flavour together, the extract is filtered through carbon that catches caffeine but passes flavour, and that flavour-saturated water then soaks the next batch — so caffeine leaves and flavour has nowhere to go.
Organic certification does not permit synthetic solvents, so an organic decaf is necessarily water- or CO2-processed. That is the most useful fact about this coffee, and it is almost never mentioned on a pack.
Decaf is not caffeine-free
EU rules allow up to 0.1% caffeine on a dry basis — a few milligrams a cup against 80–100 mg for regular coffee. Negligible for almost everyone; not zero, which matters if you have a genuine caffeine sensitivity or an arrhythmia you are managing.
Peru
One of the world's largest sources of certified organic and Fairtrade coffee, grown by smallholders in cooperatives at altitude. Peruvian arabica is characteristically mild, sweet and low in acidity — a good match for decaf, where harsh notes have nowhere to hide.
Araku Coffee
Araku Coffee
Araku Coffee
Araku Coffee
