DECAF COLOMBIA JULIO BASTIDAS

Recommended Retail Price: £13/250g

Tasting Notes: A rich and satisfying cup that gives roasted peach and caramel sweetness with a syrupy texture. Finishing with a zingy candied orange peel aftertaste.

Region: Nariño
Altitude: 2000 m.a.s.l.
Variety: Castillo
Process: Anaerobic natural, sugarcane decaffination 

UK Arrival: July 2026

This is the first coffee we have sourced from young producer Julio Bastidas and his farm Finca San Isidro Labrador. Julio is a great example of a modern Colombian producer, inheriting his family's farm and bringing it up to date with contemporary processing techniques and farming practices. He also leads the Cedro Alto collective through which, alongside coffee growers from neighboring areas, he exports coffee to Langdon Coffee Merchants. His primary goal is to ensure high-quality coffee reaches consumers who truly value the work and the product. 

This decaf really stood out to us for its rich chocolate and ripe fruit flavours, combined with a round texture and sweet aftertaste.

Julio Bastidas

Julio Bastidas is a small-scale producer from southern Colombia. He lives in the town of La Unión, Nariño, and belongs to the third generation of coffee growers in his family. His life revolves around managing his family's coffee farm and helping his community. Currently, he  leads the Cedro Alto collective through which, alongside coffee growers from neighboring areas, he exports coffee to Langdon Coffee Merchants. His primary goal is to ensure high-quality coffee reaches consumers who truly value the work and the product. 

At Julio’s family farm, San Isidro Labrador, they carry out an anaerobic fermentation process using sealed tanks for 4 to 5 days. Afterward, the coffee cherries are spread onto raised beds (covered drying structures) where they oxidize naturally for a couple of days until the beans begin to dehydrate from sun exposure. Finally, the coffee is transferred to a mechanical dryer to achieve its optimal moisture content before packaging. This process highlights predominant notes of ripe fruit and dark chocolate, which define their signature cup profile.

Anaerobic Natural, Sugarcane Decaf

This natural coffee from San Isidro Labrador undergoes a specialized decaffeination process in Colombia, the only one of its kind in the industry. Using mountain spring water and natural ethyl acetate derived from sugar cane, the decaffeination process begins with steaming the green coffee at a very low pressure to remove the silver skin that sometimes still clings to the bean after dry milling. The beans are then moistened with hot water to soften them and begin hydrolysis of the caffeine, which is bonded to salts of chlorogenic acid.

The ethyl acetate solvent is then circulated through the beans multiple times until at least 99.9 percent of the caffeine is removed. A low-pressure, saturated steam is then applied to remove any last traces of ethyl acetate, and finally the coffee is vacuum-dried in drums to remove any water and bring the final moisture level to between 10 and 12 percent. The coffee is cooled to ambient temperature with fans and then polished with carnauba wax to protect it against humidity.

Langdon Coffee Merchants

Langdon Coffee Merchants is a specialty coffee importer founded in Melbourne in 2015 by Chris Langdon as an offshoot of his family’s food importing business, Langdon Ingredients. They have since expanded and have offices in New Zealand and London, but the team remains small and their focus is on building long term relationships with producers. They import coffee from around Central and South America, Mexico, Africa and Papua New Guinea.

We’ve worked with Langdons since 2023 when Ludwika met them and one of the Honduran producers they work with at a cupping in Edinburgh. We’ve had a few Honduran lots from them such as a Pareinema from Carlos Alberto Portillo at the beginning of 2026. This will be the first decaf coffee we have sourced from them.