Coffee and bean honey treatment | Origin of honey treatment and half-sun treatment _ history story of honey treatment

The honey treatment in the traditional treatment appears only after the sun and water washing. The earliest regions to use honey treatment are Costa Rica, El Salvador and other Central and South American countries. Its invention is inspired by the Brazilian half-sun method (peeling and sunbathing). The Brazilian half-sun method appeared because the raw bean treatment in Brazil at that time was mainly the traditional sun treatment, and its quality was much lower than that of the elevated beds in Africa at the same time. The traditional sun treatment is to dry the coffee beans directly and coarsely in the drying field, resulting in coffee easily mixed with many other impurities, easy to be infected and deteriorated, resulting in a rotten taste. The use of sun treatment is due to low cost, lack of water resources in Brazil, dry weather and lack of water washing. In order to improve the market competitiveness and improve the quality of raw beans, Brazil has developed a half-sun method (also known as semi-washing). The treatment process is as follows: first, the coffee fruit is floated to remove impurities and impurities, then go into the machine to peel and peel off and remove part of the pectin. Then put into the tank to ferment, the time is about an hour, at this time, the sticky beans will be removed from the fermentation pool and directly laid on the African elevated net bed for drying. Because the fermentation time is much shorter than that of washing, the pectin layer is retained. Compared with the water washing treatment, this kind of half-sun treatment saves a lot of water resources, reduces the cost, greatly shortens the days of drying compared with the traditional sun drying, and avoids the bad taste of excessive fermentation and the infection of dust pests on the ground. The quality of coffee beans has been greatly improved.

The success of half-sun in Brazil has attracted the attention of a large number of countries that use water-washing treatment in Costa Rica, which has introduced the half-sun treatment in Brazil, because the climate in Costa Rica is not as dry and rainy as in Brazil. therefore, according to the degree of pectin retention and drying time were modified, differentiated into black honey treatment, red treatment, yellow treatment, white honey treatment.

The difference between them lies in the thin and thick degree of pectin retention, black honey treatment: almost no removal of pectin, the longest drying time, need more than 14 days of dry fermentation, if the sun is too big, but also need to artificially block the sun to avoid drying too fast, through a long time of fermentation drying so that the sugar in the coffee has been fully transformed, the sweetness is obvious, the fermentation is heavy, with ripe fruit flavor, the taste is close to the sun. Red honey treatment: remove more pectin than black honey treatment, remove about 25% of pectin, dry fermentation time is about 12 days, the sun is too big also need sunshade to delay fermentation time. Yellow honey treatment: remove about 40% of the pectin, can fully air, dry fermentation time in a week or so. White honey treatment: remove about 70% pectin, drying time is shorter than yellow honey treatment, white honey treatment flavor is clearer, acid quality is more obvious, taste is close to water washing treatment.

Honey treatment can be said to be a hybrid version of tanning and washing. The purpose of honey treatment is to produce coffee beans with cleaner flavor and better quality with less water than washing. It can be said that it is washed and discounted in the sun.

Sweet feeling: sun treatment > honey treatment > water washing treatment acidity: water washing treatment > honey treatment > sun treatment

Alcohol thickness: sun treatment > honey treatment > cleanliness of washing treatment: washing treatment > honey treatment > sun treatment.