Detailed explanation of sun, half-sun, water washing and honey treatment of coffee beans

In recent years, with the continuous popularity of boutique coffee, new occupations: roaster and cup tester have become popular in the industry, and coffee roasting has also become the preferred way for some baristas and enthusiasts to start their own business. there are many factors that determine its taste, the variety of coffee trees, the way coffee beans are handled, the area where the tree grows, and even whether the tree has shade trees or not. Shade tree is what kind of tree and so on, there are many factors, the influence is not easy to determine. However, the author believes that each different influencing factor will have its own characteristics.

Coffee beans are treated in the following ways: sun (Natural); half-sun (Semi-Natural or Pulped-Natural); Honey processing (honey) and Washed (washing). Our most common treatment is Washed. Washing treatment means that after the coffee fruit is harvested, the immature and moldy beans are screened out by a special way, and then the peel is removed, and then soaked in a large tank for fermentation. The pectin of the fermented coffee beans falls off naturally, and then dried to remove the shell. The countries that use more water washing are mainly Central and South American countries and African countries. The characteristic of washed beans is that the taste spectrum is clean and the flavor is clear, but the sweetness is lower. Sun treatment (Natural/Dry processing), that is, the harvested coffee fruit is hand-selected, the whole fruit is exposed in a ventilated and dry sun, and then the peel, pulp and shell are removed.

The main countries that use the sun treatment are some African countries and Brazil. the sun treatment is greatly affected by the treatment environment and technological level, so the quality varies, but on the whole, the coffee beans treated by the sun have high sweetness. it has a unique fermentation flavor, but once the fermentation flavor is not played well, it will be transformed into stink, rotten milk, mildew and so on. Half-sun, can also be called half-washed, can also be called peel sun (Semi-natural/pulped-natural). That is, the peel of the coffee fruit is removed in the same way as washing, and then the coffee fruit with pectin is exposed to dry and ventilated sunlight, and then shelled. Half-sun is mainly used to treat coffee beans in Brazil, and half-sun is a unique treatment in Brazil. Half-sun-treated coffee beans do not mix with miscellaneous flavors as easily as sun-treated coffee beans, while keeping part of the taste clean and with a small amount of dried fruit-like fermented flavor.

Honey treatment (Honey processing), which is very similar to half-sun treatment, but the difference is that honey treatment retains more pulp ingredients during sun exposure. Costa Rica is the main country that uses honey treatment to treat coffee beans. due to the high level of technology required for honey treatment, honey-treated coffee beans not only have a clean taste and high sweetness, but also retain the flavor of fruit fermentation.