Decaf doesn’t have to be terrible.

I was recently ordering a decaf americano while at a cafe with friends and one of them said "DECAF?! But you're a coffee connoisseur! How can you order DECAF?!"
To be fair, this is a really common response. Most people associate decaf with being bitter or simply not worth comparing to a regular cup of coffee. Knowing this, we really wanted to break the stigma around decaf coffee and try to bring something really tasty to the line up. Something you would be excited to drink regardless if it had caffeine or not. Before I get into the specifics of our new Honduran decaffeinated coffee, I want to share a bit about my (Marissa) story with coffee/caffeine.

I didn't drink coffee for 6 months. To make that even more insane, I wasn't drinking coffee when we launched Attalus. I was working with a health coach and needed some serious gut and adrenal healing, and caffeine was potentially a huge factor contributing to my problems. We didn't know for sure, but it was worth giving it a shot to feel better.

Fast forward 6 months of not drinking coffee, relying on Kevin to bear the weight of tasting all the coffee and making the notes you see on your bags, and I wanted to reintroduce coffee. I didn't want to jump right back into regular caffeinated coffee, so I tried decaf first. Unfortunately, it simply couldn't compare to the coffees I had in the past and while I was excited to have some semblance of coffee back, I felt let down by the lack of really amazing decaf options.

I have friends who are allergic to caffeine and/or have really adverse reactions to it. Weather it's anxiety triggering or it effects their gut, regular coffee just isn't an option for them. Since they don't normally find good decaf options, they miss out on the experience we love of our morning coffee, sitting down with friends, or enjoying a hot cup on a cold day. With having a multitude of friends who have this health problem as well as my own personal experience, we knew having the best decaf possible was of utmost importance.

Before I gave caffeine up, I honestly didn't think having a solid and delicious decaf on our line up would be very important to me. Like most people, it felt more of an afterthought or something I didn’t care to put much effort into. I was on the same side as people who thought it to be pointless. A lot of people who drink decaf might not be huge coffee drinkers for one reason or another, but maybe they do want to enjoy the coffee drinking experience.

We didn't want our decaf drinking friends to think they were the last ones we thought about when curating our coffee lineup and it's been a desire of ours to bring this specific coffee on as soon as possible. We are so excited to partner with De La Finca to bring on this certified organic, honey and mountain water processed Honduran coffee. Gathering from a collective of small producers in the Marcala region of Honduras, this coffee is sent to Descamex in Mexico where they decaffeinate it with pure water from Pico de Orizaba using a water saturation process that removes the caffeine without the use of chemicals. We feel proud to stand behind the processing method of this coffee as well as the amazing farmers who harvested and processed it.

When buying and drinking this coffee that tastes of honey and chocolate, you can be confident that not only will the flavor be great, there are no chemicals used in the decaffeinating process, and it's organic! So if you can’t drink caffeine or maybe you want to enjoy coffee in the evening, give our new decaf a try, and let us know what you think!