Processing coffee.
Coffee beans are the seeds of a fruit, the coffee cherry. Processing is how those seeds are separated from the fruit and dried after harvest.
On this page
Natural and washed.
In natural processing, the whole cherry dries first; the dried skin and fruit are removed afterwards. In washed processing, the skin and fruit flesh come off before drying.
Some natural coffees get their fruity notes from compounds that form after harvest, not from fruit juice soaking into the seed, the SCA writes. Not every natural tastes fruity.
Natural anaerobic.
Anaerobic describes fermentation with little or no oxygen. The word refers to fermentation, while natural refers to drying the whole cherry, so the two can appear together.
A process name does not give the length, vessel or temperature of fermentation, and it does not fix one flavour. Those details belong to each lot.
Our coffees by process:
- Natural anaerobic: Java Colombia, Geisha Colombia
- Natural: Pacamara Colombia, Mandela Colombia, La Esperanza Colombia
Decaffeination.
Decaffeination is a separate step: it dissolves caffeine out of the green coffee and is not part of how the harvested cherry is processed. Compressed carbon dioxide is one of the solvents used, the SCA explains. Decaf Colombia is decaffeinated with carbon dioxide (CO₂).
Process, origin and taste.
Each product page gives a coffee’s origin and taste, and its process where we have it.
Sources.
- Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO): Introduction, section “Processing of the cherry”
- Specialty Coffee Association, 25 Magazine Issue 10, Zhang and De Bruyn: The Fermentation Effect
- CEBE Coffee Roasters: product pages for our six coffees
- Specialty Coffee Association, Coffee Decoded 20: What Makes Fruit-Dried Coffees Taste Fruity?
- Specialty Coffee Association, Coffee Decoded 21: The Chemistry of Decaffeination