What Are the Different Coffee Bean Drying Methods? Where Are the Marking Differences Between Washed and Natural Coffee Beans?

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Introduction to Coffee Bean Processing Methods

When purchasing coffee beans, you often see terms like "Washed," "Natural," or "Honey." These all refer to coffee bean processing methods, which are essentially drying methods. What exactly do they mean? And how do they affect coffee flavor?

Understanding Green Bean Processing

Selecting high-quality green beans is the roaster's responsibility, just as a chef must select fresh fish, meat, fruits, and vegetables. Without good, fresh ingredients, even the most skilled chef would find it difficult to create a great dish. Green beans are the "agricultural products" that result from harvesting and drying coffee from growing regions. The coffee beans (roasted beans) we drink are the food products obtained from roasting these agricultural products. Here, I hope everyone will firmly remember the concept that coffee is an agricultural product. Therefore, simply put, coffee flavor depends on: green bean quality, processing method, appropriate roasting, and proper brewing. Let's first look at the composition of coffee green beans:

Green Bean Structure

When coffee matures, the outermost skin turns deep red (with a few variety exceptions). Directly eating the pulp inside has an unexpectedly sweet taste. Finally, the "coffee seeds" wrapped inside the parchment layer and silver skin are the green coffee beans we normally consume.

Now that we understand the composition of green coffee beans, we can more easily understand the processing methods. The following three are the more common processing methods:

Natural Process

As the name suggests, this is a method of using sunlight to dry coffee fruits (coffee cherries).

The harvested coffee cherries are exposed to sunlight, then the dried fruit skin, pulp, and silver skin are removed to extract the internal green coffee beans. Natural processed coffee has soft acidity with layers, fermented flavors, and higher sweetness, making it the most traditional processing method. Average quality natural processed beans are less aesthetically pleasing and easily mix with unripe and defective beans. High-quality natural beans have ripe fruit flavors, wine-like aromas, and rich flavor layers.

Washed Process

The harvested coffee cherries are placed in a pulp separator to separate the beans from the pulp, then the beans are placed in clean water tanks for fermentation (honey processing skips this step). After removing the mucilage on the outer layer of the beans, they are sun-dried. This processing method results in coffee beans with clearer, cleaner flavors and higher acidity than natural processing (because they don't dry with the pulp attached!)

How to Distinguish Natural and Washed Coffee Beans by Appearance?

Harvested coffee beans must immediately enter processing, otherwise they will start to ferment, causing the beans to produce off-flavors. There are two processing methods: "Natural" and "Washed," which result in different aromas and appearances.

Aroma:

Natural processed beans have complete natural mellow flavors, gentle aromas, and more body; washed processing has good mellow flavors, high aromatic intensity, and vibrant acidity.

Natural Green Beans: The beans are greenish-yellow, generally have poor uniformity in size, and retain more silver skin on the surface.

Washed Green Beans: The green coffee beans are slightly grayish-green, have relatively uniform size, and retain less or no silver skin on the surface.

Natural vs Washed Coffee Beans

Natural Roasted Beans: Poor uniformity in roast color, mottled appearance, no silver skin on the center line.

Washed Roasted Beans: Better uniformity in roast color, neat appearance, with residual silver skin on the center line.

Honey Process

Honey processing, as its name suggests, shows more prominent sweetness.

Honey processing is essentially intercepting the washed process midway, skipping the fermentation step and directly drying with the mucilage/pulp attached. This processing method reduces acidity, increases sweetness and body, while also maintaining fruit aromas and being cleaner than natural processed beans.

Sometimes when purchasing coffee beans, you might see processing methods like "White Honey" or "Yellow Honey." This classification depends on how much mucilage/pulp is retained on the beans during drying. Drying with 80% pulp is called "Black Honey"; with 60% pulp it's "Red Honey"; retaining 40% pulp is "Yellow Honey" processing; and with 20% pulp it's "White Honey" processing. In terms of flavor, beans dried with more pulp, such as black and red honey, will have flavors closer to natural processing - high sweetness and abundant fruit aromas. Conversely, the less pulp retained, such as white honey processing, the cleaner the cup, with higher sweetness than typical washed beans. Honey processing is commonly found in Central American countries like Costa Rica or Panama, with excellent and stable quality. If you want to combine the clean freshness of washed processing with the sweetness and fruit aromas of natural processing, honey processing is an excellent choice for your cup!

Conclusion

I hope this introduction to processing methods helps you more clearly identify the flavors you want to try when selecting coffee beans.

FrontStreet Coffee: A roastery in Guangzhou with a small shop but diverse bean varieties, where you can find various famous and lesser-known beans, while also providing online store services. https://shop104210103.taobao.com

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