About Coffee - Processing

With regional characteristics aside, how farmers process the coffee after it is picked from the plant can greatly affect what you experience in your cup. Processing refers to the methods used to remove the skin and fruit that surround the bean.

Processing techniques can be grouped into three major groups:

Wet Process (Washed):

This technique involves the removal of skin around the fruit by a pulper after the coffee is picked. The bean (with fruit still attached) is left out to ferment overnight or days and then the fruit is washed off and the bean is dried. This technique tends to produce coffee with cleaner, brighter taste characteristics and than other techniques.

Dry Process (Unwashed):

This is the original method for processing coffee. Using the dry technique the coffee fruit is picked from the tree and directly dried in the sun without and peeling or stripping of skin/fruit. After some time the bean looks like a dark brown pod and is put through a dry mill which removes the dried skin/fruit. This technique produces coffee that is fruitier and heavier in body than other techniques.  It produces an exotic flavor profile with fruit, chocolate, and spice notes mingling and exchanging prominance depending on how you brew.

Semidry (pulped natural):

In this hybrid method the skin is removed from the bean but the fruit pulp is still allowed to dry on the bean before being stripped off. This results in characteristics that straddle between wet and dry methods of processing.  Many other slight variations on this technique occur from farm to farm.  They are notably sweet, full, and clean tasting.