Understanding Natural Process Coffee: A Comprehensive Analysis of Its Benefits and Drawbacks

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Natural Process

The natural process is the oldest and most traditional method for processing coffee beans. First, harvested coffee cherries are poured into large water tanks. Ripe and full cherries sink to the bottom, while underdeveloped or overripe cherries float to the surface.

After removing these floating cherries, healthy coffee cherries are placed on patios to receive direct sunlight exposure, reducing moisture content from 60% to 12-15%.

Finally, a hulling machine removes the hard outer skin and pulp, leaving behind the green coffee beans.

The natural process adds berry and tropical fruit flavors to coffee, with mild acidity. However, traditional natural processing can sometimes produce negative flavors, such as earthy or over-fermented notes.

Nevertheless, the natural process has become popular again recently, even becoming one of the important processing methods for competition-grade coffee beans. This change comes from the use of improved African raised beds.

Raised beds not only prevent moisture from the ground, animal droppings, and earthy flavors but also allow better air circulation around the cherries, resulting in more uniform drying. Combined with farmers' continuous regular turning,

the coffee beans can gently develop through the pulp fermentation, making the flavors increasingly full-bodied.

Single Layer Natural Slow Fermentation Method

In typical natural processing, ripe coffee cherries are dried whole under direct sunlight or stacked on raised beds for sun exposure. The cherries continuously ferment during the drying process, which takes about a month. However, Hambela Estate's single layer natural slow fermentation method controls their drying schedule to approximately 18 days, using the most precise and meticulous operations. The method involves maintaining the coffee cherries on drying racks at a "single layer" thickness. This approach is called SLD - Single Layer Drying/Slow Drying. The thin thickness provides the perfect convection and drying environment for coffee cherries. They believe appropriate slow drying allows coffee cherries to develop optimal activity during the drying process, not only developing more layered flavors in the coffee beans but also allowing the green beans to maintain longer storage during the harvest cycle.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Natural Processing:

Advantages:

The natural process doesn't require water except for the step of removing floating cherries, and one bucket of water can be reused multiple times. With low costs, it's widely used in regions with limited water resources.

Disadvantages:

1. Because natural processing requires coffee beans to be placed outdoors, there are often many impurities mixed in, such as dead branches and fallen leaves.

2. Because it relies on sunlight, the drying degree of coffee beans is difficult to control, leading to "over-drying" situations where coffee cherries get damaged, causing internal coffee beans to break.

3. During the natural drying process, because the pulp is not removed, mold and rot often occur.

Flavor Characteristics of Natural Process Coffee Beans:

Because the natural process allows coffee cherries to dry naturally, coffee beans can mature naturally inside the fruit without interference from external environments. Therefore, coffee beans processed by natural method amplify their inherent flavors, with rich body, intense flavors, and sweet aromas.

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