Green coffee is decaffeinated before roasting. This process changes the color of the green coffee: it varies from light brown (Natural and CO-2) to green-brown (MC and Swiss Water Process -SWPdecafs). There is another decaf we list as WP, Water Process, which is a water filtration method similar to Swiss Water, but performed at a plant in Mexico. The arrival of decafs always follows the main crop of a coffee by some months, since the coffee needs to be shipped to the decaffeination plant. Oddly, there are only a few such plants in the world, so decaf coffee has to travel a long way usually from origin, to plant and then to the buyer’s country. This adds to the cost too, so decafs are often a bit pricier.

Solvent based processes are those in which the caffeine is removed from the beans with the help of a chemical solvent, such as methylene chloride or ethyl acetate. Those solvent based processes in turn can be divided into methods using the “direct” method versus the “indirect” method. We do not use any beans using this method of decaffeination at Miss Mary’s.