The difference between sun exposure and washed coffee beans! Coffee beans with white silver skins are sun-dried or washed?

If you are a friend who often drinks hand-brewed coffee, Qianjie believes that you should often see friends around you who can distinguish washed coffee from sun-treated coffee with just a glance or a sip. Due to the speed of identification, many friends are amazed by this and don't know how it is done. Yesterday, a friend sighed to Xiangjie.

In fact, this is not difficult, and it will even be much simpler than everyone thinks. Qianjie has shared the distinction between sun exposure and washing several times. It does not require years of experience. As long as we are familiar with the differences in treatment between the two, we can quickly distinguish the two through the characteristics of bean appearance and flavor. Come out! So today, Qianjie will take everyone to review how to quickly separate sun-dried and washed coffee.

First of all, understand the processing process of washing and sunning. We can actually understand the processing of coffee as a process of drying coffee beans! The early treatment methods, without exception, were all invented to better dry coffee beans. Because only dry coffee beans are easy to store, they will not easily mold even after being stored for a long time. Sunning was the earliest coffee processing method! For a long time, sunning was the only coffee processing technology circulating in the Arab world. Solarization is called "Natural" in English, which translates to nature, which means natural and non-technological processing methods.

And its processing steps are just as the name suggests, without using any technological interference. Just lay the freshly harvested coffee fruits on any plane. After the fruits are dried and dried to a certain extent, the dried fruits can be recycled, and then the peel, pulp, pectin, sheepskin layer and other substances wrapped around the coffee beans are all removed, and at this point, the treatment can be declared complete. However, the solar method has a significant disadvantage, that is, it relies heavily on the weather. Because the entire coffee fruit is put into drying together, the drying speed is very slow. This is not friendly to some countries with humid climates and frequent rainfall, so many regions have developed other treatment methods according to local conditions. For example, in the West Indies, because it is difficult to treat coffee beans in the local area, water washing treatment has been developed according to local conditions.

As the name suggests, the Washed Process is a processing method that uses water resources to process coffee. The more conventional washing treatment will put the harvested coffee cherries into a pool for flotation, and screen out the unripe fruits and rotten bad fruits; then remove the peel and pulp of the good fruits, and transfer the coffee beans with pectin and sheepskin layer into the water tank for immersion; after a period of time, the beans will be transferred into another clean water tank and specially stirred manually to remove the remaining pectin on the outside; When the process is over, the coffee beans with only sheep skin and silver skin will be sent to sun drying. After drying to a certain extent, the shells can be removed and the coffee beans can be taken out.

So the above is the entire process of the two processing methods. After you understand these two processing steps, you can begin to master how to distinguish between sun-dried coffee and washed coffee!

The difference in raw beans... On raw beans, we can distinguish between sun exposure and water washing by their color. As Qianjie said earlier, because the sun treatment directly dries the entire coffee fruits, the drying speed is very slow. This will cause a large amount of sugar in the flesh and pectin to penetrate into the bean surface during the drying process, resulting in Maillard and caramelization reactions. In addition, the beans are wrapped in the flesh and peel and cannot come into contact with the sun, so the final processing The color of the beans will be a dazzling golden yellow (picture right).

Water washing treatment removes the pulp, peel, and pectin before drying in the sun, so almost no sugar will penetrate and adhere to the bean surface during the drying process. In addition, the beans themselves can directly contact the air and sunlight, and the drying speed is very fast, and the color of the beans themselves is well preserved, so the color of washed raw beans is generally clear green (picture left).

The difference in cooked beans... The characteristics on cooked beans are more obvious, and many coffee guys use this to quickly distinguish sun-dried beans from washed beans. Very simple, we only need to observe whether the midline of a serving of coffee beans has a large amount of white silver skin to know whether it is sun-cured or washed coffee beans.

Usually, cooked beans that are washed will have a large amount of white silver skin on the middle line, while sun-dried beans will have less, or even none. The reason is also the difference in processing steps. Sunning treatment will cause sugar to impregnate the coffee beans, and at the same time, the sugar will also impregnate the silver skin. Therefore, during the baking process, the silver skin of the sun-dried beans will become darker and less white due to the caramelization reaction of the sugar. Even if you bake it a little deeper, the color of the silver skin will be the same as that of the coffee beans, and from a distance, it will look as if there is no silver skin (right).

Because the silver skin of washed beans is not impregnated with sugar, the color of the silver skin of the beans will be whiter unless it is baked deeply. Then because the white color contrasts with the dark brown color of the coffee beans, the silver skin will be prominent and conspicuous. So this is the best way to distinguish sun-cured and washed beans from their appearance.

The difference in taste... Finally, there is the difference in taste. In the early years, coffee processing was developed to dry coffee beans, but with the popularity of the concept of fine coffee, people found that different processing methods would bring different taste changes to coffee, so more and more special processing methods came into being. The method came into being. The biggest difference between sun exposure and washing treatment is the varying degrees of fermentation.

During the processing process of sun-cured coffee, because more substances accompany the coffee beans to dry and ferment, and the time is longer, sun-cured coffee will have a very rich layer and flavor expression. At the same time, sun-dried coffee will also have different degrees of fermentation depending on the degree of fermentation; in contrast, washed coffee will appear very clean because there are fewer substances involved in fermentation during the processing process and the drying time is short, so washing can allow the coffee to retain more of its original flavor. Although the layers are not as rich as sun-dried coffee, because the degree of fermentation is not so strong, washed coffee will have a very high degree of cleanliness.

Among the bean lists in Qianjie, there are two coffee beans from the same production area but with different treatments. They are Front Street Yejia Shefei·Sun-Sunned Red Cherry, and Front Street Yejia Shefei·Water-washed Fruit Tintin. Although they all carry the basic flavor of the Yejia Shefi region, the texture of coffee tastes very different due to the differences in processing methods. The following is a comparison of the flavors of two coffees brewed on Qianjie. You can refer to it. The extraction parameters are as follows: powder amount 15g, powder and water ratio 1:15, water temperature 92°C, fine sugar grinding, 75% sieving rate on No. 20 sieve, time 2 minutes. Front Street Yejia Shefei·Sun-cured Red Cherry: You can taste the sweet and sour fruits of citrus, berries, and yellow peaches at the entrance. At the same time, they have a touch of jasmine fragrance, and the finish has a little aroma of preserved fruit and red wine. The overall taste is full, rich in layers, and has a long finish.

Front Street Yejia Xuefei·Water-washed Fruit Dingding: What you taste at the entrance is the very fragrant scent of jasmine, followed by the fresh and bright acids such as lemon, grapefruit, and berries, as well as the sweetness of honey, and the tail rhyme of oolong tea. The overall taste is clean and clear, and the taste is soft.

In addition to the differences in texture, we can often hear the saying that "sun-cured coffee tastes sweeter, and washed coffee tastes sour." Such characteristics are also affected by the processing method, which leads to the roasting degree of sun-cured coffee being often deeper, and relatively more sour substances are worn away, so it tastes sweeter, while washed coffee is the opposite. The above are a few differences between washed and sun-dried coffee. In fact, as long as you understand the processing steps and go through an actual comparison experience, we can basically master the skills to quickly distinguish between washing and sunning. It is very simple ~