How does coffee get into the form we all know and love? Coffee is produce; it is grown on a tree at high elevation in the tropics. How does it get from the tree to our cup? It is harvested, processed, and shipped to your roastery. Let's talk about this seed to cup saga.

 

Growing Coffee

Farmers plant and care for their coffee seedlings until they grow into reproducing trees. This growth process generally takes 3-5 years from seedling to mature, reproducing tree. Farmers apply compost, fertilizers, fungicides, and pesticides to their trees to stimulate growth and to ward off disease. Finally, the mature plant will flower, exhibiting beautiful aromatic white buds. The flowers are naturally pollinated and the buds become coffee cherries.

These tiny fruits are edible, sweet, and ripen from green to yellow or red depending on the varietal. Farmers then harvest the rippened cherries, picking only the fully developed fruits. In larger farms, the owners may hire locals to harvest the trees.

 

Processing the Coffee Fruit

Once the cherries are harvested, they need to be processed. When roasters receive coffee, it is just the seed. Processing is the method the farmers and mills use to extract the seed from within the cherry fruit. There are several processing methods, each affect the taste of the coffee in different ways.

 

Washed / Wet Process

In this process, coffee cherries are run through a de-pulping machine that strips the skin off the fruit and pulls the fruit pulp off of the seed. This process then washes the seeds in tanks that ferment any remaining fruit making it easy to wash it off of the seed. The green seeds are then dried on cement patios and raked periodically to ensure even drying and to keep the whole bean clean. The dried green beans are then packed in grainpro bags and exoported to the roaster.

This process is historically recent development. It provides a cleaner and more balanced cup than alternative processing methods. Washed coffee is what most coffee drinkers are accustomed to. The drawback to this processing method is its heavy use of water. After processing, that wastewater is dangerous to the ecosystem because of the fermented pulp it holds. Beside that, the sheer volume of water used could be used for more eco-friendly purposes, like drinking, farming, etc.

View All Our Washed Process Coffees

 

Natural / Dry Process

The natural process method lays the cherries out on drying beds for the sun to shrivel up the fruit with the seed inside. The pruned cherries are then raked to remove the brittle fruit off of the seed. This drying method imparts some of the fruitiness of the cherry into the seed, giving the coffee drink a sweetness that wet process coffees do not have.

This method uses no water and is especially helpful in regions that get little rain. The natural process is the historically traditional processing method. That coffee drinkers find its unique flavor to be new is not a reflection of this process, but of the ubiquitous taste of washed coffee in the recent past.

View All Our Natural Process Coffees

 

Honey Process

A middle ground between the two methods above, this process does not use bee's honey. Rather, this method strips off the skin of the cherry like the washed method does. After that, some of the fruit mucilage is left on the seed as it dries on raised beds in the sun. The level of mucilage that is allowed to remain imparts varying levels of fruity sweetness to the seed. Higher elevation beans will be processed with only a little fruit on it, giving it a cleaner taste than the natural process; this is called white honey processed. Lower elevation beans will retain more fruit, giving it more sweetness than one would expect out of its elevation; this is called black honey processed. There is a spectrum between white and black honey in this processing method ... white, yellow, gold, red, and black.

This process is better for the environment than washed processing and imparts a cleaner cup than natural process exhibits. It is a middle ground processing method in every way.

View All Our Honey Process Coffees

 

Which One is Best?

That is up to you and your palate. Like all food, there are very little rights and wrongs. It is all based on your taste preferences. For me, I like to note the unique character of every cup. Just like brew method, level of roast, country of origin, or tree varietal, processing methods affect the taste you get from the coffee beans. That spectrum of flavor is what keeps me coming back for more all the time. I've been enjoying the range of what coffee can be for the last fifteen years. I'm not bored because I keep experimenting.

I'd encourage you to try something new because this industry is so new and we are learning new things all the time!