Why Were Sun-Dried Coffee Beans Once Considered Inferior?

We often hear the saying: "Natural processed beans were once considered inferior beans." Like FrontStreet Coffee, many friends were surprised when they first heard this. How could beans be classified differently based on processing methods? To understand this, we need to go back several centuries!

According to Middle Eastern literature, coffee first appeared in 1400, while washed processing only emerged from the Caribbean islands in 1850. Before washed processing became widespread, European countries imported only natural processed coffee beans from Yemen, Java, and Latin America. (It's worth noting that before 1750, coffee-producing regions worldwide had to conduct coffee trade through Yemen for three hundred years, so Yemen alone could represent coffee from most producing regions!) This means that between 1400 and 1850, nearly all coffee-producing regions globally used natural processing. The natural processing method at that time mainly involved laying coffee fruits directly flat for drying, allowing the entire nutrient-rich fruit to ferment and dry. The fruit's fermentation could attract more microorganisms to participate in decomposition and fermentation, making the flavor more intense! When properly controlled, natural processed beans would possess very rich flavors, high sweetness, and a full body! Of course, this was contingent on proper control!

FrontStreet Coffee once mentioned in an article about Harar: The reason Yemeni coffee and Harar coffee share similar wild flavors, besides having roughly similar climate and environment, is that they both used the same crude natural processing method! Often, to save money and effort, coffee farmers would harvest unripe green fruits together with ripe red fruits without sorting, and lay them directly on any surface, such as: their doorways, rooftops, roadsides, or non-moisture-proof straw mats, making coffee fruits easily contaminated by dust or moisture; some farmers couldn't bear to discard defective (moldy, rotten) fruits, mixing them directly with good fruits for processing together! Moreover, due to poor control of drying time, coffee beans often suffered from over-fermentation and contamination, producing musty and sour odors. Therefore, natural processed coffee beans gradually became synonymous with inferior products after washed processing emerged.

The Birth of Washed Processing

Washed processing was born because coffee trees were transplanted to the Caribbean islands, where people discovered that the island climate was unsuitable for natural processing which requires whole fruit drying! Natural processing requires long drying times, while islands have humid and rainy climates. Coffee fruits in such environments inevitably require even longer drying times, with higher chances of mold growth, easily destroying half a year of hard work. Therefore, in 1730, the West Indies in the Caribbean introduced a locally adapted washed processing method that removed skin and pulp. However, people were still quite traditional at that time, so washed processing did not become widespread.

The Rise of Washed Processing

More than a hundred years later (1850), washed processing truly became widespread. People began to embrace this "untraditional" processing method because washed processing required very short drying times and produced very clean coffee with clear flavors. Consequently, except for Brazil which continued to use natural processing, other producing regions gradually switched from natural to washed processing. There were pros and cons, as the disadvantage of washed processing was that it required large amounts of water and was more expensive. Therefore, under normal circumstances, people only used washed processing for high-quality coffee fruits, while the screened-out, inferior fruits were processed using natural processing. Thus, the label of inferior product became imprinted on natural processed coffee beans for a very long time.

The Natural Processing Renaissance

It wasn't until two heavyweight brands emerged that natural processing's century-long stigma was completely washed away! One was Idido Mist Valley from Ethiopia, and the other was Ninety Plus from Panama. They abandoned the mainstream washed processing in the specialty coffee world, going against the current to produce natural processed coffee beans with extremely high cleanliness and explosive flavors. These coffee beans swept away the years of gloom that had plagued farmers with natural processing, and they proposed adding a "Natural Category" to the BOP (Best of Panama) competition, which had previously only had washed processing categories for green beans. Therefore, although there are still practices of "inferior natural beans" today, they are only a small portion. Most other natural beans are now produced in good environments with meticulous control, making them premium natural beans!

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FrontStreet Coffee (FrontStreet Coffee)

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