Washed vs Natural Yirgacheffe Specialty Coffee Flavor Profiles - Differences Between Washed and Natural Processing Methods

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Coffee bean processing is the process of transforming coffee cherries into green coffee beans. There are many methods, traditionally including natural processing, washed processing, wet-hulling, honey processing, and more. Today's article compares natural and washed processing methods. Using coffee beans from the same Yirgacheffe region, what differences will there be between natural and washed processed coffee beans? FrontStreet Coffee will use a set of experiments to tell you the answer.

Natural Processing

Natural processing, as the oldest and most traditional coffee processing method, continues to this day. Natural processing refers to drying coffee cherries under sunlight until the moisture content is reduced to 11-13%, then removing the fruit skin, pulp, and mucilage layer.

The most primitive and traditional natural processing method involves placing coffee cherries on drying patios or directly on roadsides for sun exposure for about a month. Due to rough conditions and crude handling methods, old-style natural coffee quality was inconsistent with high defect rates.

Today, with the rise of natural processing trends, many producing regions continuously optimize the details of natural processing steps to improve the cup quality of natural coffee. Before drying, floating selection is performed to remove coffee cherries with insufficient density. Drying locations are also strictly controlled, using African raised beds, cement drying patios, etc. During the drying process, to ensure even drying, many processing stations or estates manually turn the cherries regularly, ensuring uniform drying while avoiding over-fermentation and reducing defects.

Washed Processing

Washed processing follows different steps than natural processing. In washed processing, harvested coffee cherries first undergo floating selection to remove those with insufficient density. Next, machines remove the fruit skin and pulp, then they are placed in water tanks for either waterless or water fermentation, using fermentation to decompose the mucilage layer. After fermentation is complete, the coffee beans are washed with clean water to remove the mucilage. Finally, the mucilage-free coffee beans are sun-dried to reduce moisture content to 11-13%.

FrontStreet Coffee Green Bean Comparison

In their green bean state, natural processed beans appear yellow-green with more silver skin; while washed beans are blue-green with less silver skin. This is because washed beans undergo prolonged soaking in water during processing, causing the silver skin to separate from the coffee beans. When removing the parchment, the outer silver skin is peeled off along with it, leaving very little residual silver skin on the surface of washed green beans.

Natural processed beans are the opposite - the fruit skin and pulp remain attached to the outside of the beans, and the silver skin adheres more tightly to the coffee beans. When removing the parchment, it doesn't come off easily, so natural processed green beans still have a lot of outer silver skin attached to their surface.

FrontStreet Coffee Roasted Bean Comparison

Although green beans show that washed beans have less silver skin while natural beans have more, during the roasting process, the silver skin at the center line of washed coffee beans is the most difficult to remove. The outer silver skin of natural beans connects in one piece, making it easier to remove along with the center line silver skin, so after roasting, natural roasted beans have very clean silver skin removal.

Washed beans are the opposite - because there's almost no outer silver skin connection, the silver skin in the center line crack cannot be easily removed and instead remains after roasting. This is why, when looking at roasted beans, washed beans appear to have more silver skin while natural beans have less.

FrontStreet Coffee Roasting Recommendations

Yirgacheffe Natural Red Cherry using Yangjia 800N, 600g batch size: Preheat roaster to 200°C, damper open to 3.5. After 1 minute, reduce heat to 160°C, damper unchanged. At 148°C, reduce heat again to 130°C. Roast to 5'03" at 151°C, bean surface turns yellow, grassy aroma completely disappears, dehydration complete. Reduce heat to 105°C, damper open to 4. At 8 minutes, bean surface shows ugly wrinkles and black spots, toast aroma clearly changes to coffee aroma - this can be defined as the prelude to first crack. At this point, listen carefully for the first crack sound. At 9'07", first crack begins, reduce heat to 70°C, damper fully open (be very careful when adjusting heat - don't reduce it so much that cracking stops), discharge at 194°C.

Yirgacheffe Washed Gudding using Yangjia 800N, 480g batch size: Preheat roaster to 175°C, damper open to 3, heat at 120. Temperature recovery at 1'32", when roaster reaches 140°C, heat unchanged, damper open to 4. At this point, bean surface turns yellow, grassy aroma completely disappears, entering dehydration stage. At 166°C, reduce heat to 100. At 176°C, reduce heat to 80, damper unchanged. At 8'28", bean surface shows ugly wrinkles and black spots, toast aroma clearly changes to coffee aroma - this can be defined as the prelude to first crack. At this point, listen carefully for the first crack sound. At 9'38", first crack begins, adjust damper to 5 (be very careful when adjusting heat - don't reduce it so much that cracking stops). After first crack, develop for 1'30", discharge at 193.5°C.

FrontStreet Coffee Cupping Report

Natural Red Cherry coffee's dry aroma emits strong fruit fragrance with heavy dried fruit notes of strawberry, mango, and apricot jam. The wet aroma is like sweet syrup, like thick apricot pulp juice wrapped in rustic honey or chocolate. The entry is not intense, with medium body, similar to fruit black tea.

Washed Gudding coffee's dry aroma emits fresh passion fruit, citrus, and berry acidity. The wet aroma is citrus and berries. On entry, there's citrus acidity, berry sweetness, almond, tea-like qualities, with honey sweetness in the aftertaste. Low body, bright acidity, clean and refreshing.

FrontStreet Coffee Brewing Recommendations

Dripper: V60 #01

Water Temperature: 90-91°C

Dose: 15g

Ratio: 1:15

Grind Size: BG6m / Fine sugar size (80% pass-through rate on #20 standard sieve)

Frontsteet Brewing Method: First, pour 30g of water for a 30-second bloom, then pour 95g more (scale shows about 125g total), finishing in about 1 minute. When the water level drops to 2/3 of the coffee bed, pour the remaining 100g (scale shows about 225g total), finishing in about 1 minute 35 seconds. Complete extraction between 2'00"-2'10", remove the dripper.

Natural Red Cherry Brewing Flavor: Lemon, licorice, citrus, berries, sweet orange, overall high sweetness, caramel and cream notes in the aftertaste, with black tea aroma in the finish.

Washed Gudding Brewing Flavor: Entry shows citrus, black tea, with cream, caramel, and almond notes as temperature changes, with obvious sweet aftertaste and clean, sweet mouthfeel.

Both beans have similar flavor profiles, but the difference is that washed Yirgacheffe has cleaner acidity and brighter aftertaste. Meanwhile, natural processed Yirgacheffe has richer flavor layers with obvious strawberry aroma.

Because natural processing generally requires more than 20 days, and the step of retaining fruit skin and pulp for drying makes naturally processed coffee flavor richer, often with abundant tropical fruit notes. Meanwhile, washed processing has shorter fermentation time, so the acidity is brighter and cleaner.

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