Explore the series | the effect of sun exposure, water washing and honey treatment on flavor?

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Coffee treatment refers to the process of turning coffee fruit into raw coffee beans (seeds). With the different regions, climates, and even elevations of coffee producing areas, each factor has a key influence on the choice of treatment methods. Therefore, no matter which method of treatment, the structure of each layer of fruit has its different intention. The following are the more common treatments:

Generally speaking, there are three ways to deal with it, which are:

Solarization method

Washing method

The treatment methods between sun exposure and water washing include semi-washing (wet planing), Brazilian peeling and tanning, and honey treatment.

1, [sun]: selection of beans → drying → shelling → screening and classification

For example, [red cherry]:

The "Red Cherry Project" (ORC) is a project to improve the quality of small-scale farms. In 2007, Trabocca, the largest raw bean manufacturer in the Netherlands, proposed the "Red Cherry Project" in pursuit of high-quality Essex beans. The plan requires that raw coffee beans should be picked not only by red fruit, but also by hand, but this is only the most basic requirement, and the plan is far from simple.

The main purpose is to encourage soybean farmers and surprise roasters. Trabocca, the largest coffee bean manufacturer in the Netherlands, invited all Ethiopian farms to produce small batches of beans of about 1500 to 3000 kilograms (50 bags of 25murmur50 bags) before the harvest season. Women can only choose fully 100% ripe red cherries, which makes a big difference in the flavor of brewed coffee. So careful-eyed and industrious Ethiopian women are important drivers of the Red Cherry project.

The dry aroma of red cherry exudes a strong fruity aroma, with a strong flavor of dried fruit, strawberry, mango and apricot jam. Wet fragrance is like sweet syrup, like sticky apricot juice, wrapped in plain honey or chocolate. The entrance is not strong, the mellow thickness is medium, the acidity is not obvious, but it is lively and bright, like fruit black tea.

2, [washing method]: selecting → to remove pulp, → fermentation, → washing, → drying, → shelling, → selection and classification.

Kenya Asali AA TOP

"Asali" means "honey" in Swahili (the official languages of Kenya are English and Swahili). The Honey processing Plant (The Asali Cooperative) is located in the Great Rift Valley Sika region in the Aberdare Mountains of Kenya, connected to Ethiopia to the east. Honey processing plant is a washing plant composed of 155 small coffee farmers. Coffee cherries come from neighboring small coffee farmers. On Mount Kenya (MT. KENYA) and MT. Among Elgon, the more famous producing areas are Meru, Thika, Nyeri, Nakuru, Embu and so on.

Flavor: asali wet aroma with ripe tomato and flower aromas, imported virgin fruit and black plum flavor, bright acidity, clean taste, medium body, outstanding middle sweetness, juicy, raspberry and yellow sugar on the finish, and green tea aroma.

3, [wet planing]: wet planing is very common in Indonesia, which is different from the general washing and tanning methods.

The endocarp of washed, honey-treated or sun-dried beans is retained until the final bean body is dehydrated and hardened, and the moisture content is reduced to 12%, or sealed and stored in storage for 1-3 months before grinding off.

However, the wet planing method takes off the endocarp when the bean body is wet and soft, and the moisture content is as high as 30-35%, so that the surface of the raw bean is directly exposed, and then continue to dry. This is because Sumatra has a humid climate and a method developed according to local conditions to speed up drying. The drying time is shortened, the fermentation period of coffee beans is shortened, the sour taste is greatly reduced, the alcohol thickness is increased, and the caramel and fruit aromas are obvious, with slightly woody and herbal flavors, which is Mantenin's unique "regional flavor".

[gold manning] Let's start with PWN, an acronym often mixed with the name of Manning Coffee, which is actually a company's acronym Pwani Coffee Company.

This company is a very famous local coffee acquisition company in Indonesia, mainly buying Mantenin Coffee. It has acquired almost all the best producing areas in Indonesia, so most of the beans produced by PWN are unique boutiques. Gold Mantning is the product produced by this company. After the acquisition of raw beans, the beans are selected by hand to select the full and flawless beans. Finally, these beans can be divided into Golden Manning as if they had gone through the draft.

Flavor: at the entrance, you can feel the mellow feeling of considerable weight, with obvious BlackBerry tonality as a whole. After about ten days of bean cultivation, the aroma shows a hint of walnut, spice and blackcurrant, and roughly shows the acidity of passion fruit and kumquat. BlackBerry, Hawthorn and orange rich fruit tone, mellow feeling quite thick and full! The whole is like tasting German fruit tea with rich layers.

4, [peel out in the sun]

The quality of the sun-drying method is difficult to control, while the water-washing method consumes a lot of water, with an average of 10-20 tons of water per ton of coffee fruit to produce about 200 kilograms of coffee beans, which countries with poor water resources cannot afford. In the 1990s, taking advantage of the unique dry climate, Brazil invented the peeling and tanning method (pulped natural).

After many improvements, according to the version of Dr. Dr. Ernesto Illy, the process of peeling and sunbathing is as follows: the defective floating fruit of coffee fruit is removed through the sink, then the peel, pulp and part of the colloid layer are removed, and then washed for an hour. Because the immersion fermentation time is very short, the pectin is not easy to wash off, and there is still pectin left on the bean shell. At this time, the shell beans are spread in the exposure field to dry. It is best to use an African viaduct with good permeability.

Queen's Manor uses half-sun treatment, semi-washing through the drying rack and baking machine, mechanical screening is supplemented by manual screening, a large number of work requires farm employees to live on the farm all year round. First, use a small amount of water to remove the pulp and peel, then put the coffee directly on the drying rack and turn it over and over again to ensure that all the coffee is exposed to the sun. After a few days of drying, it is mechanically dried to achieve the right water content.

Flavor: sweet beans, clean, half-sun use will make her slightly bright acidity, but also good with the sweet knot, some even have tropical fruit aromas, especially the overflowing aroma when cooking, more lovable. Sugar cane juice's sweet, black tea, beautiful and smooth fruit sweetness, obvious nutty flavor, balanced and supple acidity, weak and clean bitterness, rich chocolate aroma and nutty flavor, bright and refreshing taste, smooth and delicate taste.

5, [honey treatment]

Honey treatment process: the process of making raw beans by sun-drying with mucous membrane. After the outer pulp of the coffee bean is removed, there will be a layer of sticky jelly. In the traditional washing method, it will be washed away with clean water, but because of the water resources limitations of some high-altitude areas, this method of drying directly with pectin has been born.

Honey-treated coffee has higher sweetness, higher sugar content and higher alcohol thickness than washed coffee. (only if the same baking degree is compared)

According to the thickness of pectin planing, the length of sunshine time (or drying thickness), and the frequency of turning when drying, honey treatment can be divided into black honey, red honey, orange honey, yellow honey and white honey.

According to the thickness of the pectin:

Black honey: hardly removes pectin, so it takes the longest time to dry and lasts for more than 14 days. In order to avoid drying too fast, cover will be used to block too strong sunlight to make sugar conversion more fully.

Red honey: remove 25% pectin (the specific methods of each manor vary), the sun lasts for about 12 days, and shading sheds may also be used in the process.

Yellow honey: remove 40% pectin and receive maximum light drying for about 8 days.

Some producing areas and estates are distinguished according to the drying thickness and the number of turns, such as yellow honey and white honey, both retain 20-30% pectin:

Yellow honey: thick layer drying, less turning times, long drying time

White honey: thin layer drying, more turning times, short drying time.

With the pursuit of more extreme coffee flavor in the coffee market, many experienced and capable practitioners begin to make higher quality coffee beans and show the possibility of coffee flavor by manipulating the details of the honey processing process.

[Costa Rican black honey]

Costa Rica's high-quality coffee beans are called "very hard beans" (SHB), and the quality of hard beans (HB) and slightly hard beans (SH) decline in turn, and this is also the way it is graded. Extremely hard beans grow at an altitude of more than 1500 meters, and altitude always represents the quality of coffee, and high altitude means better quality. In addition, due to the high altitude drop caused by sufficient rainfall, is very beneficial to the growth of coffee trees; and high altitude night temperature is low, resulting in slow growth of trees, so that coffee fruit better absorb more nutrients, coffee flavor is also richer.

Flavor: plum, honey, brown sugar, orange blossom, white chocolate

Taste: good sweetness, soft acidity, round and full, long-lasting finish.

For example, the timing of picking red coffee fruit is determined by instruments such as sugar meter. Coffee with the same maturity will taste cleaner, while sweeter red fruits will increase the sweetness of the coffee, and more mature fruits will increase the fermented aroma. Honey treatment not only retains the cleanliness of water washing, although it is not as bright as water washing, but increases sweetness and caramel taste.

In fact, the treatment method has a great impact on the flavor of beans, the sun method makes the beans have obvious fruit fermentation flavor, the bean sour taste of water washing method is brighter, and the honey treatment method is between sun drying and water washing, which has both the fermentation flavor of the sun and the bright fruit acid of water washing. according to personal understanding, peeling and tanning is not as delicate as honey treatment, and the taste will be more complex.