The ALMA blending program is Onyx Coffee Imports method to keep a consistently delicious decaf offering available year-round. It's also a means for them to keep farmers they've worked with for years, consistently connected with the market.
The owner of Onyx Coffee Imports, Edwin Martinez, grew up on a farm in the mountainous Huehuetenango region of Guatemala. His family has operated that farm for 3 generations and continues to do so today. Over the years, Edwin moved towards connecting the incredible coffees coming out of Huehuetenango with coffee-drinking markets across the globe. He and the Onyx team have built long term relationships with farmers around the region, discovering that through knowledge, ingenuity, and connectivity they can produce phenomenal coffees more consistently and connect it with markets that pay increasingly more sustainable wages.
Decaf has traditionally received bad marks from everyone in regard to taste. When you peel the curtain back as to why it's so bad, however, you quickly find that the culprit is what makes most things in life suffer: a lack of care and attention at every level. Because decaf has traditionally been looked down on, it has typically been comprised of the cheapest grade coffees, been given poor treatment in shipping, chemically processed into decaf, received poor treatment in roasting, and frequently is not dialed in by baristas at local cafes. Collectively this leaves you no chance to experience a decaf that tastes good by any stretch of the imagination. From this angle, It's not hard to see that if you flip the script you might actually drink decaffeinated coffee you enjoy. That's what the ALMA blending program is about.
Onyx blends Huehuetenango coffees throughout the year to keep decaffeinated lots small and fresh and consistently hovering at an 85-point quality (the threshold that is considered "specialty coffee" on a scale from 0-100). The coffee is then processed using the Swiss water processing method in British Colombia Canada. This process does not employ chemicals and removes 99% caffeine content. The coffee is shipped in sealed grain pro bags to protect it from the humid environment at sea and elsewhere. Then it's in our hands. We roast it with care and ensure it's dialed in when served on bar. Lo and behold, it tastes delicious just like other coffees! From everyone involved in this chain, we hope you enjoy!
P.S.
For every pound of Alma sold, $0.05 goes directly to Onyx's partners at Habitat for Humanity Guatemala to support their Smokeless Stove Program. These clean stoves have impacted families for decades by increasing indoor air quality and wood-fuel efficiency while decreasing cooking time. From the 2021 crop Alma sales alone, 42 families received a new stove. In the future, they plan to invest in home-building origin trips with volunteers from every link in the coffee value chain.
