Coffee Tasting | How to Distinguish Flavor Differences Between Washed and Natural Coffee Beans

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Coffee Beans

Two Different Green Bean Processing Methods

Harvested coffee beans must immediately enter processing, otherwise they will start to ferment and develop off-flavors. There are two processing methods: "Natural" and "Washed," which create different flavor profiles.

Natural processed beans have complete natural mellow flavors, gentle aromas, and more body; while washed processing offers good mellow flavors, high aromatics, and lively acidity.

Traditional Natural Processing

Natural processing is the most ancient post-harvest processing method for green beans.

Natural processing typically adds fruit-like flavors to coffee. These fruit-like flavors usually refer to blueberries, strawberries, or tropical fruits. However, it can sometimes produce negative flavors such as barnyard earthiness, over-fermentation, and fecal notes.

The natural processing process is quite labor-intensive. Hand-harvested high-sugar cherries are first placed on African raised beds to dry in the sun for about 10 days, then moved to greenhouses covered with plastic sheets to create more direct heat, continuing to dry until the moisture content reaches 11.5%.

This slow drying process allows the green beans to develop more natural sweetness from within, but it also requires more careful attention and precise calculation of turning frequency. When the bright red cherries finally turn black and emit aromas of fruit cake, caramel, and even sherry, the process is complete.

Refined Natural Processing

In recent years, as the coffee market pursues more extreme coffee flavors, many experienced and capable practitioners have begun to control the details of the natural processing process to produce higher quality coffee beans and demonstrate the possibilities of coffee flavors.

For example, using instruments like Brix meters to determine the optimal harvest timing for coffee cherries - cherries with consistent maturity taste cleaner, while higher sugar content cherries increase the coffee's sweetness;

Using specially designed raised drying tables allows berries more air circulation, resulting in more even drying;

Fully Washed Processing

Using washing and fermentation methods to remove pulp, mucilage, and parchment. Farms using washed processing must build washing tanks and have access to continuous fresh water. During processing, the fermented beans are placed in tanks and moved back and forth, using the friction between beans and the power of flowing water to wash the coffee beans until smooth and clean.

After washing, the coffee beans are still in their parchment, with a moisture content of 50%, and must be dried to reduce the moisture content to 12%, otherwise they will continue to ferment, mold, and spoil.

The better processing method is sun drying, which takes 1-3 weeks, but produces excellent flavors that are well-loved.

By controlling drying thickness, turning frequency, and managing different shading and ventilation effects, the fermentation speed and degree of natural processed coffee can be controlled, achieving consistency across different batches and improving the reproducibility of special coffee flavors.

Flavor Differences

Natural Processed Coffee: Natural processing is somewhat complex, usually with light fermentation notes, and the flavor will be much richer, with full body and long aftertaste.

Washed Processed Coffee: Washed processing produces brighter acidity and cleaner taste.

Natural Coffee - Brazil Fazenda Rainha Yellow Bourbon Pulped Natural - 2017 Brazil COE Third Place

In 2011, the farm won the Brazil COE competition. Fazenda Rainha belongs to the renowned and respected coffee family Carvalho Dias family. The four major farms under Carvalho Dias have won awards every year since the first Brazil COE competition in 1999, with more than 12 awards over 7 years. In 2004, they even swept the championship, 9th place, 11th place, etc., surpassing many large and small farms in Brazil.

The Yellow Bourbon variety has obvious sweetness in its flavor, but not boring sweetness, with a light lemon aroma in the background that is more prominent in the wet aroma stage. The later stages show distinct dark chocolate flavors, with an overall rounded feeling. While embodying the overall characteristics of Brazilian coffee, it maintains lively qualities.

Natural Coffee - Uganda Natural SL14, SL28

The varieties grown by Ugandan farmers are SL14 and SL28. SL varieties come from research and selection by Scott Laboratories. Uganda not only processes washed coffee but also micro-batch natural processing. After removing unqualified floating beans, they undergo 3 weeks of natural drying, with constant turning of fresh fruits to avoid fermentation or mold, achieving very clean and rich flavors.

In the 2017 Harvest Season Flavor Competition held in Uganda, "Kasese Rwenzori Mountains Jagranji Processing Plant" won fourth place. The Rwenzori Mountains Jagranji Processing Plant uses natural processing. The dry aroma has wine and roasted melon seed notes, the wet aroma has sweet orange juice qualities, and sipping reveals citrus, berry, and other fruit flavors with clear, bright acidity and smooth texture. Spices, woody notes, complex mouthfeel.

Washed Coffee - Costa Rica Tarrazu Caturra

Tarrazu in Costa Rica is one of the world's major coffee-producing regions, producing coffee with light and pure flavors and pleasant aromas. High-quality Costa Rican coffee is called "Hard Bean," which can grow at altitudes above 1500 meters. Altitude has always been a challenge for coffee growers. The higher the altitude, the better the coffee beans, not only because higher altitude increases the coffee's acidity and thus flavor, but also because the lower night temperatures at higher altitudes slow tree growth, resulting in more concentrated coffee flavors.

Locals select fully ripe cherries. This area is the most intensive fruit-growing region in Costa Rica, with farm owners mainly growing passion fruit, making coffee quite scarce. Only one specific area grows coffee, receiving special care, with only mature red cherry fruits being harvested. Caturra, when lightly roasted, shows obvious acidic aromas, overall brightness, and can exhibit excellent sweetness with proper processing. However, compared to Bourbon, Caturra has relatively lower body. The taste shows plum, sweet orange, peach, grapefruit, juice-like qualities, natural sweetness, delicate texture, overall perfect and balanced.

Washed Coffee - Guatemala

The Fraijanes region of Guatemala surrounds the capital Guatemala City, with high altitude, abundant rainfall, and large humidity variations. Volcanic ash from Guatemala's most active Pacaya volcano provides important minerals for the region's soil. Green beans have grassy and spicy notes, with a distinctive smoky flavor and strong aroma.

Due to the defects of traditional natural processing, washed processing was developed. The harvested berries are processed through a depulper to separate most of the pulp from the coffee beans, then the parchment beans are guided to a clean water tank, soaked in water for fermentation to completely remove residual pulp layers. Through water processing, unripe and defective beans are selected out due to buoyancy, and the fermentation process is better controlled. Therefore, unlike natural processed beans with off-flavors, washed coffee presents distinct fruit acidity, slightly more complexity, and cleaner cup qualities (without any negative flavors like astringency or sharpness).

Washed Coffee - Sumatra Mandheling

Mandheling, also known as "Sumatra Coffee," mostly Gayo variety is produced in North Sumatra. Lake Tawar in the north can be called Aceh coffee or Tawar Lake coffee. South Sumatra's Lintong and Lake Toba area can be called Mandheling. The Lintong area is truly the Mandheling producing region.

Lake Toba

Located in central North Sumatra Province, Dutch colonialists moved "Java Mandheling" north to the Lake Toba region in 1888, creating the modern Mandheling legend.

Lake Tawar

Located in central Aceh Special Administrative Region. Situated at the northern tip of Sumatra Island, with an area less than one-tenth of Lake Toba. However, in recent years, coffee quality and production have surpassed Lake Toba.

Wet hulling, also known as Wet Hulling, is called Giling Basah in the local language and is the traditional Indonesian coffee processing method. Wet hulling is very similar to wet processing (washed processing). Coffee processed through wet hulling is typically full-bodied and intense, with very distinct characteristics. We generally believe that wet-hulled beans have earthy, smoky, and chocolatey flavors, with acidity described as "low acidity," full body, and low acidity derived from shorter, less effective fermentation processes and longer drying times.

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Indonesia | Sumatra Mandheling

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