The difference between washing and sunning flavored coffee beans

The difference of flavored coffee beans between washing method and sun-drying method

1. Choose beans:

Put the harvested fruit in the water tank, and the ripe fruit will sink, while the unripe and overripe fruit will float up and can be removed.

2, dry:

Put the selected ripe fruit in the square and expose it to the sun for 5-6 days until it is fully dry. At this time, the fruit becomes dark brown and the moisture content is 13%.

3, shelling:

After drying, the peel becomes fragile and easy to fall off, and can be removed by machine. Farms run by enterprises usually have their own shelling factories, while small farms are processed by processing centers.

4, selection and grading:

Exquisite farms identify defective beans manually or by machine, pick them out and throw them away. Manual selection usually uses a transmission belt about 1 meter wide, with several female workers sitting on both sides visually picking out bad beans, and some good farms are even selected several times until defective beans are not seen. Machine selection rules use computers to identify defective beans, followed by a grading process that divides coffee beans into several quality grades according to established standards. Good coffee enters the selected coffee market, while bad coffee flows into the commercial coffee market.

This method is extremely common in Brazil. The natural washing method is very similar to the water washing method, except that the natural washing method uses a high-pressure washing machine to remove the mucous membrane of the coffee surface, thus skipping the fermentation process. Several raw coffee processing companies in Brazil and Colombia have patented this method and have become local natural water system processing monopolies. The amount of water used in this method is much lower than that of washing hair, so some people are used to calling it "semi-drying (Semi-Dry)". Because there is no fermentation, coffee beans do not exist (or only have a very low risk of fermentation), and the overall quality of coffee is more constant. Unfortunately, the taste of coffee tends to be flat because it is not fermented. As a result, growers will not use natural washing for ultra-high quality coffee beans. Most raw bean purchasing companies also rarely buy coffee processed by natural washing. Almost all the producing areas of Costa Rica use honey treatment. This method is also widely spread throughout Central America. Because the surface mucosa of coffee beans is extremely slippery and the sugar content is extremely high, it is often called "honey". In the process of honey treatment, coffee will leave some or all of the "honey" when it is dried. After the coffee fruit is picked, graded and peeled, it is placed on a drying bed to dry.

Washed coffee accounts for 35% of exports. Good quality washed coffee is processed with freshly picked fully ripe fruit, picked carefully and closely monitored by professionals. The picked clean coffee beans are pulped on the day of picking, then fermented, washed, dried and peeled. The humidity of processed coffee beans is kept at about 12%. The washing rule has a good mellow taste, a high aroma and a lively sour taste.

Sun-cured coffee accounts for 65% of exports. Mainly picked by families, red coffee beans are placed on cement floors or on high tables to dry to about 11.5% humidity, then peeled and cleaned. Sun-dried beans have a complete natural mellow flavor, gentle aroma and more gum.