The category, explained
What is açaí coffee?
Açaí coffee is made from the seed of the açaí fruit, roasted and ground. It brews like coffee, in the same machine, using the same method. It has never contained caffeine.
Start with the fruit
Açaí grows on palms in the floodplains of the Amazon, mostly in the Brazilian state of Pará. The fruit is small and dark purple, and it is almost entirely seed. Around 85% of the weight of an açaí berry is the stone in the middle.
The part everyone knows, the deep purple pulp in smoothie bowls, is the thin layer scraped off the outside. The seed underneath was treated as waste for generations. In the interior of Pará, people worked out long ago that if you dry that seed, roast it and grind it, you get something you can brew. That is açaí coffee.
It is not coffee, and it is not decaf
It contains no coffee
The açaí palm and the coffee plant are unrelated. Nothing in the bag came from a coffee bean.
It is not decaffeinated
Decaf starts as ordinary coffee and has the caffeine stripped out. Açaí seed never had caffeine, so there is nothing to remove.
It is not flavoured coffee
Some US products sold as "açaí coffee" are regular coffee blended with açaí berry and sugar. Those contain caffeine. Read the ingredients, not the name.
How it compares
| Açaí seed coffee | Coffee | Decaf | Tea | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Caffeine | None, naturally | Yes | Trace, removed | Yes, unless herbal |
| Ingredients | One | One | One, plus processing | One |
| Brews in a coffee maker | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| Acidity | Low | High | High | Low to medium |
| From something discarded | Yes | No | No | No |
What it tastes like
Dark and full-bodied, much closer to coffee than to tea. Earthy and nutty, with a clean finish. It is low in acid, so it does not carry the sharpness or the bitterness of a dark roast coffee. It does not taste like açaí smoothie bowls, because the pulp and the seed are different parts of the fruit.
How you make it
Exactly the way you make coffee. Same grounds, same ratio, same equipment. A drip machine, a French press, a pour-over, a percolator, an espresso portafilter, or overnight as cold brew. There is nothing to learn and nothing to buy.
Full brewing guide
Where it comes from
Over ninety percent of the world's açaí is grown in Pará, in northern Brazil. Most brands selling açaí coffee in the United States buy from producers there and package it under their own name. We are one of those producers. This is our factory.
Our storyBe first to try it in the US
We are working through US import and labelling now. Leave your email and we will tell you the moment it is available.