Cumbres de Nariño EA Decaf

About the Coffee

This decaffeinated community lot comes from 14 smallholder producers in Nariño, most of whom farm around Buesaco. They grow Caturra, Colombia, and Castillo varieties at 1,800 to 2,100 meters on volcanic soil. The region's steep slopes and unique climate allow coffee to be grown at these extreme altitudes without risk of frost. Warm, humid air moves up from the valleys during evening hours, creating ideal conditions for the traditional varieties that make up this lot.

Shared Source created Cumbres de Nariño in response to a changing landscape in Huila, where they historically built their decaf offerings. In recent years, more producers in Huila have been renovating their farms, removing traditional varieties like Caturra, Colombia, and Castillo in favor of newer varieties like Sidra, Pink Bourbon, and Aji. As their relationships in Nariño strengthened, Shared Source turned to these producers to create this new decaf program using the washed, traditional varieties that were becoming harder to source elsewhere.

The coffee is decaffeinated using the EA (ethyl acetate) process. Each producer picks only ripe cherries and processes them at their own micro-mills, typically fermenting for 12 to 18 hours before washing and drying on raised beds or patios. The green coffee is then sent for decaffeination before being exported through Shared Source.

About Subtext

Subtext operates out of an industrial area in Toronto, Canada. The roastery was founded with a focus on making the people and places behind coffee visible, pushing against the anonymization that has characterized commodity coffee throughout history. They don't blend coffees, rename them, or roast dark, believing these practices have historically kept producers and their treatment hidden while serving only the consuming world.

Their roasting philosophy centers on maximizing flavor complexity and balance while bringing out as much origin character as possible. They avoid any roast flavor in their profiling, instead developing the coffee just enough to highlight the intrinsic qualities already present in high-grade green coffee. For consistency, they measure hundreds of color readings per batch using a ColorTrack system and regularly test extraction with refractometers. They also analyze green coffee moisture and density, use multiple thermocouples during roasting, and cup extensively throughout the process.

The team employs advanced quality control tools not just for measurement's sake, but because they believe nothing they do as roasters can create quality that doesn't already exist in the green coffee. Their role is to preserve and reveal what producers have already built through their work in the fields and at the mill.

"Subtext was borne out of Boxcar Social (one of my favourite places to meet up with friends here in Toronto), during the pandemic. Since then, they've built out one of the more interesting and comprehensive coffee lineups in the country. Near and dear to me, they release an annual transparency report; each report is a thoughtful and honest analysis of the effort they put in to reducing the footprint of their coffee."

- Dean, Director of Coffee