Are Brazilian Coffee Characteristics as Intense as Football Fever? Understanding the Half-Sun Dry Processing Method for Brazilian Coffee Beans

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FrontStreet Coffee - Introduction to Brazilian Coffee Characteristics and Processing Methods

Friends familiar with Brazilian coffee must know that Brazil not only has high-quality specialty coffee but also serves as an essential base bean in many coffee blends. The most prominent characteristic of Brazilian coffee is its mildness, allowing people to enjoy it without excessive concerns about bitterness or acidity. It offers a smooth mouthfeel and is suitable for pairing with various types of coffee. The mildness of Brazilian coffee is also inseparable from Brazil's own conditions.

Unlike most coffee-growing regions worldwide that are located in high mountains, most Brazilian coffee is grown in plain areas. Although Brazil's plains have lower altitudes (typically 600-900m), they cover vast areas and are located in temperate zones with suitable temperatures, making them suitable for coffee cultivation. Therefore, Brazil has adopted a strategy focused on quantity.

It is for this reason that Brazilian coffee lacks the hardness and intense acidity of high-altitude coffee. The beans themselves tend to be softer in texture, making most commercial Brazilian beans easy to roast and resulting in a milder flavor profile.

The Originator of Honey Processed Coffee

When discussing Brazilian coffee, one point that cannot be overlooked is Brazil's pulped natural processing method, which has significant connections to the various popular honey processing methods today. The pulped natural method was created in 1990 by Brazil, a coffee-producing country. Due to Brazil's location in South America, water resources are scarce, and the climate is humid, making drying inefficient. Therefore, when both sun-drying and washed processing methods proved impractical, they created a processing method that removes the coffee cherry skin to quickly improve drying efficiency.

The pulped natural processing method is a compromise between sun-drying and washed processing methods. Its goal is to produce coffee with cleaner flavor and better mouthfeel than sun-dried coffee using less water than the washed method. However, since Brazilian coffee is processed in large batches, farmers simply remove the cherry skin while retaining some pulp (mucilage), followed by sun-drying.

Although Brazil's method of handling cherry skin and mucilage is relatively simple, approximately fifty percent of the mucilage is retained. If measured by honey processing standards, Brazil's pulped natural processing method barely meets the "yellow honey" standard.

Knowledge Point: In terms of flavor and mouthfeel, pulped natural processing produces relatively cleaner results compared to natural sun-drying methods, while still maintaining good texture.

In Brief

FrontStreet Coffee is a coffee research workshop that enjoys sharing coffee knowledge with everyone. We share without reservation solely to help more friends fall in love with coffee. Additionally, we hold three coffee promotion events with significant discounts each month. This is because FrontStreet Coffee wants to let more friends enjoy the best coffee at the lowest possible prices—this has been our mission for the past six years!

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