What are the ways to dry coffee beans? What is the difference between coffee bean washing and sun marking?

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When buying coffee beans, you will often see the words "Washed", "Natural" or "Honey". These are the ways to treat raw coffee beans, that is, the way they are dried. What exactly does it mean? How does it affect the flavor of coffee?

A brief talk on the treatment of raw beans

It is the baker's responsibility to choose high-quality raw beans, just like chefs who want to choose fresh fish, vegetables and fruits. Without good fresh ingredients, it is difficult for a good cook to make a good dish. Raw beans are "agricultural products" picked and dried by coffee-producing areas. And the coffee beans (cooked beans) we drink are the baked food of this agricultural product. Here, I hope you must remember that coffee is a concept of agricultural products. So, to put it simply, determining the flavor of coffee depends on the quality of raw beans, drying, proper roasting and proper brewing. Let's first take a look at the composition of raw coffee beans:

Raw bean profile

When the coffee is ripe, the outermost skin turns crimson (with the exception of a few varieties), and the pulp is unexpectedly sweet to eat directly. Finally, the "coffee seeds" covered by the sheep cortex and silver cortex are the coffee raw beans we usually refer to.

Now that we know the composition of raw coffee beans, it is easier to understand how to handle them. The following three methods are more common:

NATURAL by solarization

As the name implies, it is the way to use sunshine to dry coffee fruits (coffee cherries).

The harvested coffee fruit is exposed to the sun, and then the dried peel, pulp and silver skin are removed. Remove the coffee beans from the inside. The flavor of the sun has soft acidity, hierarchical, fermented flavor and high sweetness, which belongs to the most traditional treatment. The sun-treated beans of general quality are not beautiful and are easy to be mixed with immature and defective beans. And good quality sun beans, with ripe fruit, wine aroma, rich flavor levels.

Washing WASHED

Put the harvested coffee cherries into the pulp separator, separate the pods from the pulp, and then put the pods into a clean tank for fermentation (honey treatment, without this step) to remove pectin from the upper layer of the pods and dry them in the sun. In this way, the flavor of coffee beans is relatively clear and clean, and the acidity of the coffee beans is high (because they do not bring the flesh with them to dry together). )

How to distinguish sunny coffee from water-washed coffee beans from their appearance?

The coffee beans after harvest must enter the treatment program immediately, otherwise they will begin to ferment, making the coffee beans have a bad smell. There are two treatment methods: "solarization" and "washing". These two methods will cause different aroma and appearance.

Aroma:

Sun-dried beans have a complete natural mellow flavor, gentle aroma and more gum; washing rules have a good mellow taste, high aroma and lively sour taste.

[sun-dried coffee raw beans]: the bean body is yellow in green, the uniformity of particle size is generally poor, and the appearance retains more silver skin.

[washed coffee raw beans]: coffee raw bean green is slightly gray, the particle size uniformity is relatively uniform, and the appearance retains little or no silver skin.

Sunburned coffee beans VS washed coffee beans

[sun-cured coffee and cooked beans]: the uniformity of baked color value is poor, the color is mottled, and there is no silver skin in the middle line.

[washed coffee cooked beans]: the baking color value is uniform, the color is neat, and there is silver residue in the middle line.

Honey-treated HONEY

Honey treatment, like its name, is more obvious in sweetness.

The honey treatment is to intercept the raw beans washed with water halfway, and not to enter the fermentation process, but directly bring pectin / pulp for exposure. This treatment reduces acidity, increases sweetness and BODY (thickness), also has fruity aromas and improves cleanliness than sun-dried beans.

When we buy coffee beans, we sometimes see coffee bean treatments such as "white honey treatment" or "yellow honey treatment", which depends on how much pectin pulp the raw beans retain after exposure. Exposure with 80% pulp is called "black honey"; with 60% pulp is "red honey"; and retaining 40% pulp is called "yellow honey" treatment; with 20% pulp is called "white honey" treatment. Flavor, with more flesh for exposure, such as black honey red honey, the flavor will be closer to the sun treatment, high sweetness, sufficient fruit aroma, on the contrary, with less pulp, such as white honey treatment, cleanliness will be better, also has a higher sweetness than the general water-washed beans. The common producing countries of honey treatment are located in Central America, Costa Rica or Panama, etc., with good and stable quality. If you want to combine the cleanliness and freshness of washing and the sweetness of the sun, honey treatment is a good choice in your cup.

I hope that with the introduction of these treatments, you can help you find out the flavor you want to try more clearly in the process of selecting coffee beans.

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