Follow the fruit from picking to dried green coffee, and understand the processing words on a label.
Start with the layers: a coffee cherry contains outer fruit, sticky mucilage, a parchment covering and the seed that becomes the coffee bean. Processing removes the fruit and prepares the seed for storage and roasting. Source: SCA Coffee Decoded 6
Natural: the whole coffee cherry dries before the dried fruit is removed. Honey or pulped natural: the outer fruit is removed first, and the coffee dries with mucilage still attached. Source: SCA Water Security and Coffee
Washed: the fruit and mucilage are removed before the coffee dries in parchment. Mucilage can be removed through fermentation and washing, by a machine, or by combining the two. Source: SCA demucilagers
Simplified sequences; fermentation and drying details vary. Source: processing methods · Fruit removal and drying
Drying reduces the seed's water content before storage. In wet-hulling, parchment is removed while the coffee is still wet, before its final drying; this changes the sequence of operations, rather than naming a guaranteed flavour. Source: SCA Coffee Decoded 6 Source: FAO wet-hulling study
Fermentation involves microorganisms acting on the coffee cherry's sugars and other material. Lactic-acid bacteria can be part of that activity; temperature, the microbes present and the way processing is managed all affect what happens. Source: SCA The Fermentation Effect
Some producers add selected microbial cultures to guide fermentation. Adding cultures and adding flavouring ingredients are different interventions; how some new processing practices should be classified remains disputed. Source: SCA coffee identity terminology
Read “lactic”, “anaerobic” and “thermal shock” together with the producer's description of the actual steps. For example, thermal shock at Finca El Paraíso involves controlled fermentation and temperature changes. Source: Finca El Paraíso
Decaffeination is a separate operation. In the Swiss Water process, water and green-coffee extract move caffeine out of green beans, and carbon filtration removes it from the extract; this is one method, not a description of all decaffeinated coffee. Source: Swiss Water's own process
These operations can affect a coffee's sensory character through microbial activity and processing conditions; a processing name alone cannot describe every variable involved. Source: SCA The Fermentation Effect
Compare the recorded base process and fermentation details below. Unresolved descriptions remain labelled as unresolved; they are not a fourth recipe. For tasting language, continue to Tasting and the Glossary.
10792 of 15368 coffees we track have an identified base process.