Washed coffee cherries, awaiting a trip to the compost.
One of the most common questions we hear from our customers deals with “unwashed” or “natural” coffees, so we figured we’d address the unique process that makes these coffees so exemplary.
Many coffee drinkers don’t realize that coffee processing is enormously complex, and has a huge impact on a given coffee’s ultimate flavor. The vast majority of the world’s arabica coffee, particularly from Latin America, is “washed,” meaning that after harvest the green coffee seeds (“beans”) are removed from their fruit casing in a de-pulper, then fermented in water for roughly 17 hours to do away with the thin layer of pectin and mucilage which surrounds the coffee seed. This process generally results in a very clean flavor with substantial brightness and balance–and, because un- and under-ripe coffee floats and can thus be sorted out, it provides for more control over the coffee’s consistency.
“Unwashed” or “natural” coffees, by contrast, are dried while still contained within the fruit, which yields a much fuller body and, above all, a phenomenally juicy berry flavor. The upshot is that unripe and over-dry coffees are harder to sort out, and as such some natural coffees betray a range of inconsistencies–unripe, nutty-tasting beans called “quakers” are the most common–unless the mill or the roaster, or both, take great care to ensure consistent quality. Traditionally, most natural-process coffees come from the low-lying mountains surrounding the Red Sea, the Indonesian island of Sumatra, and above all Brazil, though they can be produced anywhere with predictable weather and abundant sunlight.
As a case-in-point of how dramatically processing can effect the ultimate flavor profile of a particular coffee, we offer both a washed and a natural-process coffee from the same cooperative: currently, Ethiopia’s Sidama Coffee Farmers Cooperative Union. The washed coffees from SCFCU are generally very bright and spicy, with melon-like sweetness, while their natural counterparts are wild and juicy, with up-front blueberry and strawberry that settles into semi-sweet baking chocolate.
Lately, we’ve also been exploring the possibility of doing some limited-run natural coffees with our Latin American trading partners, and we’ll keep you posted as these plans (hopefully) bear fruit–so to speak.
