The five best coffees to try right now!
Love it or hate it decaf coffee is a necessity for some of us. Depending on your perspective its either the saving grace for a coffee fix or the devils brew designed to torment serious drinkers in coffee hell. If you’re pregnant and want coffee, have acid reflux, or just have heart palpitations from caffeine, decaf is your best choice. But no worries here are five decaf coffees that taste like regular and even offer some unique flavors.
Why Drink Decaf?
Overall I think the true coffee aficionado can enjoy a good cup of decaf for the pure flavor and experience of coffee and not the just the quick buzz common in many extreme caffeine coffees. After having to drink decaf I have become somewhat of an expert in the subject through experiential learning i.e. drinking a lot of good, great and just plain bad decafs.
Most of the time the biggest issue with decaf is people think decaf drinkers are a bunch of sissies that cant handle a real cup. Many roasters roast to a light to medium roast and it really just makes a cup of dirty sock water no matter how good the roaster or beans are. Don’t get me wrong a light roast can be excellent and does offer a different flavor profile but for me just doesn’t work for me. The same is true for the caffeinated version as well though.
Decaf that tastes like regular
What are some decaf coffees that taste like regular for serious drinkers? Below is a list of five coffees I have sampled and my results. Full disclosure, I am in no way an expert taster or trained barista. A long time ago I asked my uncle how to tell a good wine from bad one. His response was elegant and efficient “If you spit it out it is bad one and if not it’s a good one!” Uncle Bill certainly had a sense of humor and very accurate all at once! That said like anything involving taste the experience is highly personalized and unique.
One final note, I try to adhere to the Specialty Coffee Association of Americas cupping procedure, see this link for more info.
The Candidates
With its dark grounds and earthy aroma this coffee will not disappoint! It has a deep caramel to amber color, with high bitterness but a roasty and sweet flavor with notes of malt, chocolate, and macadamia nuts this one is an a solid offering. Probably best brewed in either a Chemex or French press but works well in Auto-drips too. Not so much a budget coffee though.
One of my favorite cafes in Seattle. I loved their coffee the first time I had it. We took a coffee crawl in Seattle and this was the gem of the crawl for me. Ordering a bag of this after all these years still takes me back to that trip.
This was one of the strangest and most unique I have tried yet. I brewed it with the official tasting method so no off flavors were imparted from filters or equipment; a clean one cup glass bowl was used. The most notable and overwhelming flavor can best be describe as tobacco or cigar like reminiscent of being trapped in a humidor. I don’t know whats up with this one. I cant say much else because I found this flavor so overwhelming I couldn’t really pick much else out. I have heard a lot of good things about this one so I was surprised at this. If you like a Rauchbeir you would probably love this one but I don’t care for it.
I really was surprised by this one. Almost as good as Cafe Umbria this one is a solid offering. The grounds feature an inviting roast with dark chocolate, sweet fruit or cherries. When drank hot it offers a mild dark chocolate and earthy flavor with low body that has a surprisingly creamy mouth-feel. A very smooth and low bitterness coffee with light acidity. This is a definite must have for everyday drinking because its a good value as well.
This one has a unique origin as its grown in Volcanic soil in high elevations. With an aroma of earthiness, figs, leather and citrus that is very pleasing. Drank hot and black this one has a medium roast with notable flavored of figs, leather, and earth with grapefruit like acidity. A syrupy mouth-feel was noted. I brewed this one in the coffee tasting standard style so no filter flavors were imparted to the finished coffee. This one was a really solid offering but the most expensive of the bunch!
A run of the mill medium roast with mild citrus like bitterness perhaps slightly sour and with a syrupy mouth-feel. Notes of walnut and milk chocolate are present. I did detect an odd note of something like cardboard. Not sure where that came from but it was there. A lot of people rank No Fun Jo pretty high on the best decafs available. I don’t agree as you probably guessed with my description as cardboard like. I found it lacking any real distinct flavors and generally was bland and uninspired. I would definitely brew it in a Chemex or French Press again to give it a fair chance. It is a more expensive option for not a lot of reward.
And the Winner is….
Cafe Umbria (according to me)! If you are looking for a solid every day drinker Cafe Umbria will not disappoint. I brewed this one in my Mr Coffee five cup pot (the perfect size for two people). I know talking about high end coffee and then putting Autodrip in the same sentence is somewhat sacrilegious but I will leave it at what a somewhat old farmer said about pulling every weed in his onion patch, “ Perfection is the enemy of good enough.”
Brewing Notes
So a few words on brewing method. In fairness this was not an even competition because I used a combination of Auto-drip, French press and the cupping methods to taste these. Why? Honestly life gets busy and I taste in my spare time with coffees I buy or people buy me. My goal would be to taste each coffee in Chemex, French Press, Auto-drip and formal cupping. As you can imagine that is a lot of coffee to drink for each type. So I will try to pick one method as a primary and also cup each coffee to give it a fair shake.
One final note on the practice of cupping. I understand the need for a standard method for people to judge coffees consistently. I am amazed how much effort it is to cup a coffee and fairly and accurately describe it. I don’t have a exceptional nose or palette but that’s why there is a standard, to get everyone regardless of ability on the same page. I will raise one criticism of the cupping procedure that’s a pretty major one. No one drinks their coffee that way, so it is a bit skewed regardless!
In cupping for those that are not familiar you add “8.25 grams (whole bean) coffee (± 0.25 grams), to 5.07 fluid ounces (150 ml) water” per the SCAA website and then cover for a three to five minutes then smell the coffee and note aromas. Next you break the grounds with a spoon and note any aromas and finally sip the coffee pushing the grounds out of the way with a spoon. There is a nuanced technique of slurping the coffee to get the flavor all on your tongue and palette so you can get the maximum flavor. I have definitely not mastered that yet either!
After this you finish with repeating the slurping with the coffee “cool” and note any flavors or aromas that develop. Overall not a hard process, other then getting the slurp just right, but definitely not how I drink my coffee in the morning. I don’t know how most tasters get past slurping some grounds too but maybe that’s part of the untold technique. Overall I found this method to give me pretty good insight into the coffees qualities but my end all taste test is to pour a hot cup add some milk and slowly sip and enjoy it. Sometimes its the simplest things that give us the best results. And these are just my opinions of these coffees after one or two rookie tastings, as time goes on I will revisit these to see if I change my opinion with more practice and better adherence to the cupping standards.
Cheers
~Mobius