The Birth of Coffee Beans (II)
Coffee bean processing
When the hard-working bean farmers antagonize the picking of mature and bright red coffee "cherries", the magic adventure of coffee beans begins. To convert a coffee fruit into raw coffee beans, it is necessary to remove the peel and pulp of the coffee fruit, leave seeds or beans, and dry it. There are usually two main processing methods in this refining process: wet method and dry method.
Both washing and drying can produce the best quality coffee. Generally speaking, water-washed coffee has distinct acidity and consistent flavor, while dry coffee has lower acidity and more varied flavor. Colombia, Kenya, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Mexico, and Hawaii all use water washing methods. Most of the coffee produced in some countries, including Brazil, Ethiopia and Indonesia, is dried, but some water-washed coffee is also produced.
Washing method (wet method)
Cherries picked include ripe, overripe, and unripe ones. These cherries must be treated separately, and they are mixed with many sundries, such as stones, leaves and so on. So these cherries have to be washed and placed in a large trough full of water for preliminary classification. The best coffee has a high density, so it sinks into the water. On the other hand, overripe cherries will surface and can be easily classified.
Remove the peel and pulp of the coffee cherry and soak it in a large cement tank filled with water. After fermentation, the water-washed coffee will have a distinctive and clear flavor. The fermented coffee beans are washed with clean water, then removed from the water and dried in the sun or machine. Finally, the peel and silver peel are removed by a sheller, which can be screened and divided into different grades of raw coffee beans.
The advantage of water washing is that it has good luster, less foreign bodies and slightly better sour taste. It is used in Colombia, Mexico and Guatemala. Disadvantages: bad time management will produce bad smell and special sour smell.
1. Select beans and remove spoons 2. Remove the outer skin and pulp 3. Ferment
4. Wash 5. Dry 6. Shedding
Drying method (dry method)
This method is usually adopted in more extensive, small-scale estates or places where water resources are relatively scarce. The treatment is to spread the coffee cherries widely on the exposure field for two weeks and sweep them with a rake several times a day so that the coffee beans can be dried more evenly. When dried, the coffee beans are separated from the skin, and the dried pulp and peel are removed by a sheller, then screened and divided into different grades. The advantage of drying is that it has a soft sour taste and a peaceful bitter taste. This method is used in Brazil, Ethiopia and Yemen. Disadvantages: vulnerable to weather, defective beans and foreign bodies are more likely to mix.
Later, a new so-called semi-washing method came into being, which omits the two procedures of fermentation and washing in the washing method, that is to say, the pulp of coffee is removed naturally, and this method is only suitable for specific regions of some countries (such as Cerrado, Silado District of Brazil), where there is a long drying period in the climate before it can be used to deal with local coffee. The coffee produced by this method is sticky, and the mucus is not removed with fermentation in the tank. Therefore, the coffee produced by this semi-wet treatment contains the characteristics of both washing and drying. The acidity, sweetness, seasoning, and aroma of this coffee are soft and not as strong as those produced by pure drying or washing.
The selection and grading of coffee depends on the particle size and concentration of beans, as well as the number of defective beans in a pound (broken beans under ripe beans, etc.). Like the best wine, the careful handling and selection of professional coffee in the production process can be seen in the quality of the beans, because the product will have a unique representation, which represents the origin, climate and growers.
Hierarchical processing method:
1. Get raw beans
a. Wet treatment: grind off the endocarp
b. Dry treatment: grind off the shell
two。 Remove impurities: stone, dust, endocarp or shell debris
Use the air separator to adjust the wind speed and separate foreign bodies and other impurities
3. Remove bad beans, such as broken beans, stunted beans, pest beans, diseased beans, overripe beans, unripe beans
Using air separator to separate bad beans with different specific gravity and weight (broken beans, overripe beans, unripe beans)
Using artificial vision or computer color sorting machine to separate bad beans with little difference in specific gravity and weight but with color difference (insect infested beans, diseased beans).
4. Size sieve: a series of sieves ranging from small to large to separate raw beans of different sizes
Grading purpose: to make the size of raw beans uniform, which is conducive to the baking operation, and improve the value of raw beans.
- Prev
The birth of coffee beans (1)
Coffee trees take 3-5 years from planting to fruiting. 6-10 Coffee trees bear fruit most easily in 15-20 years, which is the harvest period. Coffee trees are usually bred in nurseries, grown into saplings, and then moved to coffee plantations a year later, following exactly the same methods used by Arabs to grow coffee trees. For the first four or five years of its life, coffee trees take root downwards and grow upwards.
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The birth of coffee beans (3)
The coffee produced by washing or drying has its own characteristics, and there is no question of which is better or worse. However, washed coffee is generally less contaminated and defective beans, and the appearance of beans is cleaner, more uniform, and the quality is more certain, so it is highly praised by Europe and America. But appearance doesn't equal
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