Your coffee journey doesn’t have to start after beans are roasted. It might just start with the green beans themselves. At Cape Coffee Beans, our mission has always been to help you brew better, but we want to help you roast better, too. With this curated green coffee selection, we invite you to take control of the roast profile and shape the flavour of your final cup. Whether you're using a dedicated roaster or experimenting with home methods like a cast-iron skillet, our green coffees let you step behind the roaster’s wheel.

If you need equipment for roasting, then browse our full roasting collection here.

As the ancestral home of naturally occurring arabica trees, Ethiopia’s relationship with coffee spans centuries and generations. Here, coffee isn't just a daily habit; it is a cultural tradition that existed long before modern espresso. Today, the soul of Ethiopian coffee lives in its smallholder farmers, who cultivate indigenous heirloom varieties across high altitudes and diverse microclimates.

About Ethiopia Sidamo coffee

Nestled along Ethiopia’s Great Rift Valley, the Sidamo region, also referred to as Sidama, is the largest coffee-producing area in the East African nation. Sprawling across fertile highlands south of Lake Awasa at elevations between 1,500 and 2,200 metres above sea level, the region's cool climate allows coffee cherries to ripen slowly and develop complex flavour profiles. Here, local smallholder farmers cultivate a diverse mix of wild, indigenous heirloom varieties in traditional 'garden plots', which are typically smaller than five hectares.

About grade 2 Sidamo

This particular Sidamo lot is designated a grade 2. In the Ethiopian coffee grading system, green coffee is classified based on the number of visual defects found in a 300-gram sample, along with bean size and preparation quality. Grade 2 denotes a washed specialty-grade coffee with a strictly limited defect count, ensuring a high level of uniformity, consistency, and cup clarity.

About the Swiss Water® Decaffeination process

This fully washed green coffee was decaffeinated using the Swiss Water® Process. This water-based process removes caffeine without using chemical solvents and is designed to retain the coffee’s flavour characteristics. Because both caffeine and the desired flavour compounds are water-soluble, the process relies on a clever bit of solubility science. An initial batch of green beans is soaked in pure, mineral-free water until the water becomes fully saturated with coffee compounds. The caffeine is then trapped and filtered out using specialised carbon technology, leaving behind Green Coffee Extract (known as GCE), a liquid containing soluble coffee compounds, with the caffeine filtered out.

Fresh batches of green beans are then soaked in the GCE. Its concentration of soluble coffee compounds helps limit the loss of those compounds from the beans during decaffeination. Caffeine moves from the beans into the GCE and is removed through carbon filtration. The resulting decaffeinated green coffee is ready for roasting, with the final cup profile depending on your roast and brewing method.

Ethiopia Sidamo Swiss Water® Decaf Green Coffee Details

• Size: 1 kg
• Grade: 2
• Altitude: 1,500–2,200 metres above sea level
• Variety: Mixed heirloom varieties
• Harvest period: November - January
• Preparation: Swiss Water® Process
• Processing: Fully washed
• Country: Ethiopia
• Region: Sidamo