Coffee review

What are the six major coffee processing methods in the world? What's the difference between sun exposure and washing? What is anaerobic treatment?

Published: 2025-02-08 Author:
Last Updated: 2025/02/08, There are many and diverse ways to process coffee, and there are no less than five methods we are familiar with! Like sunning, washing, honey processing, etc. We all know that different processing methods will cause coffee to develop completely different flavors due to different steps, but the concept of fine coffee has not yet been popularized.

Coffee is processed in a wide variety of ways, and there are no fewer than five treatments that we are familiar with. Such as the sun ah, washing ah, honey treatment, and so on. We all know that different steps can lead to a completely different flavor performance of coffee, but before the concept of boutique coffee was popularized, treatment was born in the world for only one purpose-to dry coffee beans. to make it easier to store, that's all.

However, with the popularization of the concept of boutique, people gradually realize that the way of treatment can have a direct impact on the flavor of coffee. Therefore, many places no longer choose the treatment of coffee simply for the purpose of drying, but can achieve the ideal flavor performance of coffee at the same time. Well, in today's article, Qianjie will come to review with you the six common ways to handle coffee, its birth, its operation, its characteristics, and what are they!

"Natural" solarization is always the first way to introduce the treatment, because it is the first treatment to be born. For centuries, all the coffee in the world was tanned. At that time, the sun method was not called the sun method, because just like us drying peanuts, it was a habitual drying process.

The operation procedure of the sun-drying method is very simple. After the coffee fruit is actually picked, it will be dried directly in the sun. After the whole coffee fruit has been dried, you can use a machine to crush the skin, flesh, sheep skin, and take out the coffee beans to announce the completion of the processing. Generally, the drying time depends on the local sunshine intensity and duration (also affected by different treatment steps). For example, there is plenty of sunshine in Ethiopia, and the drying time for coffee beans is about 3-4 weeks. The advantage of the solarization method is very obvious, as long as the treatment area has a long period of sunshine. Then, because the peel and pulp are wrapped in coffee beans throughout the process to participate in drying fermentation, so the processed coffee will develop a very rich flavor performance. But at the same time, its disadvantages are also very prominent, one is that it has a strong dependence on the weather, and because the control of fermentation is relatively low, so the final quantity of high-quality coffee beans will be relatively less, so the price will be more expensive. (this is part of the reason why the sun red label is more expensive than the water washing red mark in Qianjie, a guest asked.)

Although solarization requires only sunshine, it is also a requirement that is difficult to meet for most coffee-producing countries, such as the West Indies. When coffee is widely grown in the West Indies, local farmers naturally have to deal with it. However, due to the local wet and rainy, short sunshine time, the time needed for coffee fruit drying has been greatly extended. As a result, coffee is more likely to deteriorate in the drying process, because the environment is wet and moldy. So by the middle of the 19th century, the "washing method" was born.

Washing "Washed" the biggest difference between washing and sun treatment is whether coffee beans need to remove their peel and pulp before drying, which can greatly shorten the time required for beans to dry (1/2 of regular sun exposure). The birth of washing treatment also benefited from the arrival of the Industrial Revolution. In 1845, the world's first coffee peeling machine (coffee pulper machine) was invented in Jamaica. Since then, washing treatment can be successfully born.

The traditional washing process is simple and delicate. Before formal treatment, the defective fruit is screened by flotation, and then the peel machine is used to remove the peel and pulp of the selected coffee fruit. Then, the coffee beans with pectin are thrown into the pool for fermentation (in order to remove pectin). After fermentation, the coffee beans will be washed manually to remove the pectin left on the coffee bean surface. After cleaning, the coffee beans will be moved to the sun to dry, and finally only the sheep skin of the coffee beans need to be removed, and the washing treatment can be declared over.

Because the washing method will not make the coffee beans ferment too much in the process, the coffee will eventually have a cleaner performance, that is, the coffee can better show its original flavor. Washing treatment has given birth to many branches, and the washing treatment used in different countries and places is different. For example, Kenya's washing treatment is also known as K72. Coffee beans are soaked twice in the process, often for 72 hours, so it is known as K72, that is, "Kenyan 72-hour washing" (for details, click on the blue word for details).

Washing is good for everything, but there is one drawback: wastewater requires an average of 10 to 20 tons of water per ton of coffee beans. Therefore, for countries with insufficient water resources, washing treatment is a very extravagant thing. But one country is smart enough to invent a way to achieve a similar effect without using too much water. Yes, this country is Brazil, and the treatment invented by Brazil is called "half-sun"!

Half-sun / pulp Pulped Natural the half-sun method invented in Brazil, as its name implies, uses both the sun treatment process and the washing process, which can reduce the use of water resources and greatly shorten the drying time. Half-sun treatment was invented in Brazil in 1990 because it has long been criticized for its roughness and inability to overuse water.

The specific method is to flotation the harvested coffee fruit, then use a peeling machine to remove the pulp, peel and part of the pectin of the coffee, and then put the coffee beans into the sink for an hour of soaking. As the soaking time is not long, so most of the pectin is retained in the coffee bean table. But even so, because of the detachment of the peel and flesh, the drying time of the coffee beans is greatly reduced during subsequent drying, the chance of deterioration is greatly reduced, and the coffee is relatively cleaner (compared to the sun). Because of this, Qianjie chose a half-sun red bourbon as the representative of Brazil in the rations series in the producing area.

Wet planing / semi-washing "Wet Hulled" most friends have asked at the front street store whether half-sun exposure can also be called semi-washing, in theory, but in most cases, semi-washing refers to wet planing. Wet planing is a unique method of coffee processing in Indonesia, because the local weather is very bad (for coffee beans), wet and rainy, the humidity is very high, so drying shelled coffee beans will be very time-consuming. And Indonesia is a big coffee producer, just like Brazil, in order to sell coffee beans as soon as possible, it needs a method that can dry coffee beans quickly. But all of the above took too long for Indonesia, so they summed up a unique way to deal with it according to their own understanding-wet planing.

The steps of the wet planing method are the same as the washing method in the first half, first flotation, peeling and meat removal, and then throwing the coffee beans with pectin sheep skin into water to ferment for 12 hours and 36 hours to decompose the pectin. After the decomposition is completed, the coffee beans with only sheep skin are laid in the sun for drying, and when the water content of the coffee beans is less than 50%, a shell planer is used to remove the sheep skin of the coffee beans, and the final drying is carried out to reduce the water content of the beans to less than 12%. The treatment can be completed.

Because it is difficult to remove sheep skin when the moisture content of beans is high, the peeling operation of the shell planer is very violent, and it is easy to cause coffee beans to be squeezed during shelling and become "sheep's hoof beans". Although Bauhinia is not very beautiful, it does not belong to the category of defective beans. (but it increases the risk of contamination of coffee beans) and the wet planing method can dry Indonesian coffee beans quickly, but the process is very tedious and not fine. Therefore, it is easy to cause coffee beans to be contaminated, and the defect rate of processed coffee beans is much higher than that of the above treatments, so it is necessary to use manual selection of coffee beans. But interestingly, the flavor caused by these factors has become the aroma feature of Indonesian local coffee beans. Mantenin's unique stuffy aroma and mellow taste are given by wet planing.

The delicious method of honey treatment "Honey Process" originated in Costa Rica. At the beginning, the main treatment method in Costa Rica was washing, but due to the continuous downturn of the coffee market at the end of the 20th century, local farmers no longer bought coffee fruits to the local washing treatment station in order to make a living, but chose to produce and sell their own coffee to earn more income. Then, without too much honey treatment, it was born in this context. Honey treatment is evolved from half-sun in Brazil, and the biggest difference between it and half-sun is that coffee beans do not come into contact with any moisture after flotation. The "honey" of honey treatment does not describe the sweetness of the processed coffee, but in the process of processing, the pectin wrapped in coffee beans is shaped like honey, so it is called honey treatment.

The honey treatment step is very simple, first of all, the harvested coffee fruit will be floated, peeled and fleshed after flotation to remove impurities and defective fruit, and pectin will be retained. Then move the beans to the sun to dry, dry to the specified water content, you can remove the shell to take the beans, complete the treatment. Because the drying time and fermentation degree of honey treatment are between sun drying and water washing, the performance of honey treated coffee beans tends to be in the middle of sun drying and water washing. Generally speaking, the flavor performance of honey treatment is more inclined to the complexity of sun treatment, while the taste is closer to the thicker and cleaner washing.

Then Qianjie often mentioned that honey treatment is divided into four different types, they are: yellow honey, red honey, white honey, black honey, and their difference mainly lies in the degree of pectin retention. Because pectin contains sugar, sugar changes its color after oxidation. Therefore, the amount of pectin retained during the processing of coffee beans will directly affect the color of the beans when they are processed. The more pectin, the more oxidized sugar, the darker the appearance of the coffee beans, and the more complex the taste.

What does the anaerobic treatment "Anaerobic Process" look like: carbon dioxide impregnation, red wine anaerobic, lactic acid fermentation, alchemist, enzyme, hot / cold shock and other unique treatment methods are mostly anaerobic treatment. Anaerobic is a way to deal with today's fire, because most of the anaerobic treated coffee beans have a unique flavor, different from the conventional, so this special treatment has been popular since it was well known for winning the championship in the past 15 years.

The specific approach varies from person to person, and different manors and different places use different treatment methods, because the combination is very diverse, so Qianjie does not share too detailed anaerobic treatment steps here. However, most anaerobic treatments add the anaerobic fermentation step before / in the conventional treatment of coffee beans, so that the degree and direction of fermentation can be controlled by fermenting the coffee fruit / coffee beans in an anaerobic environment. Coffee beans can develop the flavor performance that the manufacturer wants. In general, the process of anaerobic treatment is directly "condensed" by the manufacturer on the name. For example, anaerobic solarization is the addition of anaerobic fermentation in the step of solarization, and so on, anaerobic washing is the addition of anaerobic fermentation in the step of washing; double anaerobic solarization means that coffee beans are fermented twice in the process of sun treatment, and so on.

The degree of bean fermentation determines the rich degree of its fermentation aroma. The deeper the fermentation of the beans, the stronger the fermented aroma of the coffee, and vice versa. Like the Santavini in the front street bean list, although it is treated by anaerobic sun treatment, its flavor does not give people a sense of fermented aroma, more tropical fruit juice. Another orange oak barrel (sold out) in the bean list exudes a strong aroma of fermented wine. So, these are the six common ways to handle coffee in daily life. I wonder which way you prefer to handle the coffee beans?

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