Costa Rican honey treats coffee beans characteristics story how to distinguish between yellow, red and black honey coffee

Costa Rican boutique coffee has only come to the fore in the past decade. Although Costa Rica introduced coffee from Cuba as early as 1729 and carried out commercial cultivation, it made great efforts to develop the coffee bean industry. But it mainly produces and distributes mixed coffee beans and Italian commercial beans for export to its nearest neighbor, the United States, which is one of the largest coffee consumers. Because of this, the quality of Costa Rican coffee beans at that time had not yet reached the level of fine coffee. Moreover, due to the poor quality of coffee beans, Costa Rica does not have a national standard (a national standard for regulating the grade of raw coffee beans), because its country is not qualified to evaluate it.

Until later, Costa Rica in order to strengthen the export of high-quality coffee to Europe, the United States, Japan and other countries. Just began to vigorously develop high-quality coffee and increase the added value of coffee exports. At the same time, the government has set up a "coffee trust fund" to help coffee farmers in need tide over their financial difficulties and cultivate high-quality coffee. And in order to make coffee have better quality and characteristics, we used the popular honey treatment method in recent years to change the reputation of poor quality coffee. Therefore, the Costa Rican boutique coffee we are now exposed to is the fine processed honey beans of each of its estates. However, there are still coffee beans treated with ordinary sun water, but the quality and flavor are not so good, so they are not as widely traded as honey-treated beans.

If you want to talk about honey treatment, you can't do without Costa Rican honey treatment of coffee beans.

In the 2003 season, Japanese raw bean buyer Guataro asked Costa Rican honey processing plants to try Brazilian half-sun treatment of Costa Rican traditional washed coffee, in order to increase the alcohol thickness and flavor properties of Costa Rican coffee, weaken the acidity of Costa Rican coffee, and partially replace the imported coffee from Brazil. From then on, honey treatment became popular throughout Central America and went to the world origin: El Salvador (besides sweet, what flavor attribute can you think of), Mexico, Costa Rica, Zawa, Sumatra, Yunnan.

In places such as Costa Rica, Brazil or Colombia, local processing plants used to use high-pressure washing machines, so part of the mucous membrane was removed during the peeling process. According to the amount of mucosal residue (40% Mel 100%), honey treatment is divided into 4 grades: 40%, 60%, 80% and 100%.

[distinguish between yellow, red and black honey treatments of coffee beans treated with Costa Rican honey]

To put it simply, honey treatment is the way to treat the coffee with pectin and endocarp after the peel and flesh are removed. The key to distinguish between different honey treatments lies in the choice of the remaining pectin.

Yellow honey: about 40% of the pectin is removed; the drying method requires the most direct heat absorption, receives the most light drying, and lasts for about 8 days to reach a stable water content.

Red honey: about 25% of the pectin is removed; it takes longer to dry than yellow honey, and reduces direct exposure to sunlight, even in shading sheds, lasting about 12 days.

Black honey: hardly remove pectin; dry for the longest time, lasting at least 2 weeks, with a cover to avoid too strong sunlight, prevent drying too fast, and make sugar conversion more fully.