July 27, 2021

Coffee Roasting - education and resources

Here are some great videos. Good sound, well organized, clear speech -- and above all, good information.

Other good videos:

Processes

There are two basic ways to prepare coffee beans. It all boils down to how the soft fruit surrounding the coffee bean is handled. The bean as removed from the tree with surrounding fruit is called a cherry. People are forever inventing new names for the different processes (or varieties thereof), so figuring out just what was done to some coffee you are buying can be a challenge. The wet (washed) process is by far the most commonly used.

So, I lied and there are actually three ways. Some people say there are four. There are probably a multitude depending how you want to split hairs.

What is sometimes called a "semi-washed" or wet hulled process is commonly used in Indonesia. A first washing removes most of the fruit, but the beans with mucilage are let rest for a day, then washed a second time to remove the mucilage, then dried.

People talk about "pulped" or "pulped natural" coffees. As near as I can tell, this is the same as the semi-washed or wet-hulled process or the "Giling Basah" process used in Indonesia. In Giling Basah, machines remove the skins from the cherries, then the beans with mucilage are stored for a day (being raked several times an hour). Fermentation breaks down the sticky residue which is then more easily removed. This yields beans with a blue-green color and gives the charactereistic Indonesion taste and profile. After the second washing, the beans must be dried to 10-12 percent water to be suitable for sale and export.

The Honey process is becoming popular in Costa Rica. A big part of it is managing fermentation and taking care that bad things don't happen if the weather doesn't cooperate. There are yellow, read, and black honey process beans with increasing amounts of residual pulp.

Lingo

SHB - strictly hard bean
SHG - strictly high grown (both indicate grown over 1350 meters (4400 feet))


Have any comments? Questions? Drop me a line!

Tom's coffee pages / tom@mmto.org