You asked. A lot.
At events. In messages. One question kept coming up.
"Do you have decaf?"
Now we do. Meet Umbra.
So... why Umbra?
Umbra is the darkest part of a shadow. In a solar eclipse, it's the spot where the sun goes quiet.
Which is kind of what decaf is. Coffee, with the buzz turned off. The cup you reach for after dinner, late at night, or in the afternoon when you still want coffee but don't want to be staring at the ceiling at 2 a.m.
Sounds a little like outer space? That's on purpose. Our coffee names are inspired by the sky and the stars, and you'll see more of that as Etho Blend V2.0 rolls out.
Here's the thing about decaf
Coffee doesn't grow without caffeine. Somebody has to take it out. The question is how.
A lot of decaf gets its caffeine pulled out with chemicals. The beans get soaked or rinsed in solvents (names like methylene chloride and ethyl acetate) that grab the caffeine. Those are allowed and regulated. But when you're drinking something every day, it's fair to want to know what touched it.
Umbra doesn't go that route.
How Swiss Water does it
Umbra is decaffeinated with the Swiss Water® Process. It uses water, time and temperature. That's it. Here's how it works, in plain English:
1. Soak. Raw coffee beans (before they're roasted) get soaked in water. The water pulls out the caffeine, and the flavor too.
2. Filter. That water runs through a carbon filter that catches the caffeine and lets the flavor pass through. (Think of the filter in a water pitcher, but built just for caffeine.)
3. Reuse. Now you've got water full of coffee flavor, with no caffeine. A fresh batch of beans goes into that water. Since the water is already full of flavor, the flavor stays in the beans. Only the caffeine moves out.
4. Repeat. It keeps going until the beans are 99.9% caffeine free.
No chemicals. Just water. And the coffee still tastes like coffee.
What's in the bag
A Swiss Water® Process decaf blend, roasted medium. Smooth, balanced, an easy anytime cup.
Where to find it
Umbra is on the shelf at Natty West, 127 Sand Lake Road in Onalaska, starting this week. Only a handful of bags made it over, so if you're nearby, stop in.
Not close by? It's online too, whole bean or ground.
Try Umbra
$2 from every bag goes to Compassion International's Unsponsored Children's Fund.
Order Umbra →Every bag. Every time.
Thanks for reading!
The Etho Blend team
@ethoblend
SWISS WATER® and SWISS WATER® Logo are trademarks of Swiss Water Decaffeinated Coffee Inc. used under license.