The flavor of beans in the same coffee farm is very different. This is the secret of processing.

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The most commonly used methods of coffee processing are washing and tanning. Although the washing type has a wide range of use, its procedure is complex, and each procedure requires different equipment; in comparison, the traditional solarization rule is more environmentally friendly, but it may cause shortcomings such as uneven color and reduced quality.

After the coffee is harvested, raw beans can be obtained by several processing methods. At this time, even the same raw beans may have different characteristics, depending on the processing methods used. One of the most commonly used processing methods are washed process and natural process. Let's take a look.

Washing type

Among the methods of separating the seeds in the fruit, washing is the most widely used. In South Korea, this method is also used to obtain ginkgo fruits. Pick the fruit from the ginkgo tree, make some scars on the fruit, soak it in water to dissolve the pulp, wash it off in flowing water, and peel off the hard endocarp after drying to get the ginkgo fruit.

Coffee is processed in a similar way when it is processed with water. After harvesting coffee cherries, the pulp is first removed by a pulp screening machine, and then soaked in a fermentation tank to remove the remaining mucus layer (or pectin) from the seeds. In the remaining endocarp state, use sunlight or machine to dry, remove the endocarp.

The whole process of washing processing is very complex, and each procedure requires different equipment. In order to obtain high commercial prices, it is necessary to improve the quality of raw beans. Therefore, we can only select mature fruits to harvest, in order to strive for homogenization of quality. And because it is reprocessed after removing the pulp, the drying time becomes shorter, the taste of the raw bean itself is obvious, the taste almost does not change, and there is no miscellaneous flavor or aroma. About 60% of Arabica coffee beans are processed using water washing, and some Robusta species also use this method. However, in the fermentation process and cleaning process, 1kg coffee cherries need to use about 120L of water, so there are doubts about environmental pollution. Therefore, in some of the premium grade raw beans, the use of environmentally friendly sun processing is also more and more.

Solarization method

Tanning is the most traditional method of processing coffee and cherries, which is often used in many countries, small farmers, or areas where water is insufficient. First of all, remove the leaves, branches and other sundries from the coffee cherry picked from the tree, then bask on the floor or platform, dry and then take off the shell. In the process of natural drying, the water evaporates, the pulp itself will disappear, and the outer shell will stick to the endocarp, so you just have to take off the shell at last. Compared with the water washing type, the equipment needed is simpler, the production cost is lower, and there are no factors that will lead to environmental pollution, so it has attracted much attention. If it is dried for a long time, the temperature inside the coffee bean will gradually rise, resulting in a change in some of the ingredients in the raw bean; the advantage is that the sweetness, aroma and consistency will become better. However, according to the state of the pulp, the processed raw beans may have uneven color, or they may feel miscellaneous flavor or aroma according to the state of coffee cherries, so the disadvantage is that the quality may become lower.

Bask in the sun in the form of coffee cherries

Picture source = "Coffee staff extreme skills Picture Book"