Processing methods of high-quality coffee and raw beans: washing and tanning

Raw coffee beans are the seeds of coffee trees. It is the wealth hidden in coffee cherries (coffee berries) that people usually call coffee cherries. They are mistakenly called "beans" because they are similar to the beans we usually see, but they are actually the seeds of coffee. Usually there are two flat oval coffee beans in the coffee berries, and a small number of coffee berries contain only one coffee raw bean, just like there is only one grain of rice in the rice. This kind of bean is called Peaberry. These raw coffee beans usually contain endosperm.

When the coffee berries are ripe, they are usually harvested by manual picking. In some places, only the fully ripe berries are picked, while others are all picked from a single branch. The former is called "handpicked" and the latter is called "strip-picking". Because the ripening time of coffee berries is not consistent, so the harvest is likely to be divided into several times, the duration will be very long, so harvesting is also the largest part of manpower investment.

The harvested coffee berries need further treatment, usually in two ways.

One is water washing, which is popular in Central America and parts of Africa; freshly harvested coffee berries separate the peel from the beans manually or mechanically, and then soak in water for 2 to 3 days. In this way, the pulp and sticky matter attached to the coffee beans will be removed. Then comes the cleaning and drying process, which can be done in the natural sun or by machine.

One is: solarization, which is more economical in Brazil and most African countries. After removing twigs and other debris, the coffee berries are spread out in the sun for 2 to 3 weeks, turning repeatedly to make the berries drier until the berries fall off the coffee beans.

When the water content of the coffee beans is reduced to about 13%, the coffee beans will be bagged and cooked in the warehouse for 1 to 3 months.

Finally, it can be sold.