Situated on the eastern slopes of the Cordillera Occidental, in the municipality of Risaralda is Santuario. With a strong history in coffee cultivation, Santuario has been declared UNESCO’s World Heritage Site for being an exceptional example of a cultural, sustainable, and productive landscape.

Bernardo Echeverry is part of the 3rd generation of a coffee- producing family. His grandparents initially bought a small farm in the 1950s and started a long-term family project. Like many others, the family went through years of solvency and years of crisis. But they understood from the very beginning that any successful farm had to focus on productivity, strict quality standards, and especially a rigorous cost-efficient structure. As the coffee industry began to evolve, Mr. Echeverry saw the need to improve his farming techniques focusing on producing more high-quality coffee while maintaining efficiency, productivity and a rigorous cost- control model to ensure profitability during the transition. Finca La Estrella is currently processing all the coffee cherries in a high-tech ecological mill that consumes significantly less water than the traditional system. 

Bernardo and his family have witnessed how most youngsters leave the coffee fields in pursuit of an urban lifestyle, they believe is it imperative to share the knowledge with all producers to spread an economically viable production methodology that will preserve their traditions.

The process

After being fully washed, the caffeine is removed through a natural process. The coffee beans first undergo steaming at low pressure to remove the silver skins. They are then moistened with hot water to allow the beans to swell and soften. This step prepares the coffee for the hydrolysis of caffeine, which is attached to the salts of the chlorogenic acid within the coffee. The moistened coffee is washed several times with ethyl-acetate solvent (EA). In the case of sugar cane decaf, the ethyl acetate is naturally obtained from the fermentation of sugar cane grown in Colombia and not from chemical synthesis. Once the caffeine is reduced to the desired level, the beans are cleaned to remove the remaining EA and dried.