Coffee stored in a warehouse for up to several years to reduce acidity and increase body. When stored properly, aged coffees have an unusual, but pleasant and mellow, taste.  

A coffee mill where the harvested cherries are processed and sorted before final bagging and export. Beneficio means benefit, or profit, in Spanish. Traditionally, a Beneficio was the local mill where farmers brought ripe cherries for processing. Increasingly, farmers are installing their own mills, or Beneficios.  

The Coffee Berry Borer (CBB), or Hypthenemus Hampei, is one of the most significant pest problems for coffee farmers. The CBB is a black, two millimeter long, beetle that bores holes through the seeds coffee cherries. "Broca" is the widely used Spanish term for the coffee berry borer.   Video

Coffee beans start out as ripe coffee cherries which are harvested and processed various ways to remove the skin, pulp, and parchment. The dried parchment of coffee cherry seeds are removed to expose the two (sometimes one) "coffee beans". If properly stored, unroasted coffee beans can stay alive for months, and may even germinate into new Coffee plants if planted and watered.  

Coffee Leaf Rust (CLR) became a problem for coffee farmers in Sri Lanka in the 1860s. CLR has since spread to every coffee growing region of the world, and it destroyed Brazil's crop in 1970 as it did previously on the Islands of Java and Sri Lanka nearly a century before. Many affected plantations replaced their Arabica trees with more disease resistant Robusta. Some of those countries have since began replacing the now less desirable Robusta trees with newer Arabica cultivars that are more disease resistant compared to the "heirloom" classics Typica and Bourbon. CLR may be prevented with copper-based fungicides.  

In the dry process, ripe cherries are first dried in the sun, after which the dried skin, pulp, and parchment are removed from the bean (seed). The process takes about two weeks and the cherries must be raked while drying to avoid mildew. Dry processing produces coffee with less acidity and more body and is only done in growing regions with naturally hot and dry climates. Brazil, Ethiopia, and Yemen produce most of the worlds dry processed coffees. Dry processed coffee is also called "unwashed", or "natural".  

A coffee estate is a coffee plantation. Estate coffees typically sell at a premium, due to better consistency and quality control, compared to coffees collected from many small farms.  

Portuguese for "farm". Coffee plantations in Brazil, for example, are called Fazendas.  

Coffee cherries that float in water and are 'floated-off' during wet-processing. Overripe, dried, damaged, or deformed coffee cherries generally float and are discarded at the beginning of wet processing. Also called "lights".  

Coffee harvest machines are used mostly on flat plantations at lower elevations. Robusta is harvested mostly by machine, while Arabica, which is normally grown at higher elevations, is typically hand picked.   Video

Coffee harvesting is done mostly by hand at higher elevations, and by machine if possible at lower elevations. For best tasting coffee, only ripe cherries are harvested. Harvesting by machine is difficult on the steep terrain typical of mountain growing regions where the finest coffees are grown, so mountain grown coffees are almost always harvested by hand.  

Removing the parchment, or hull, that surrounds the coffee beans in a coffee cherry.  

Kaffee Veredelungs Werk. KVW is a reputable German company that, among other things, decaffeinates coffee beans. KVW decaffeinates large quantities of coffee beans, most notably by the Methylene Chloride (MC) solvent method. Using this method, the coffee beans are heated with steam and exposed to Methylene Chloride which removes the caffeine but not the flavor. The resulting Methylene Chloride and Caffeine mixture is then separated from the coffee. Mixing Methylene Chloride with a food product may seem unsafe, but KVW MC decaffeinated coffee has been thoroughly investigated and determined safe by the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Since Methylene Chloride boils at 104 degrees Fahrenheit, any residual solvent left in the beans would be boiled away during roasting, since the beans reach temperatures above 400 degrees Fahrenheit.  

A solvent commonly used to decaffeinate coffee. To make decaffeinated coffee, unroasted beans may be heated with steam and exposed to Methylene Chloride. The resulting Methylene Chloride and Caffeine mixture is completely removed from the coffee. Since Methylene Chloride boils at 104 degrees Fahrenheit, any traces of solvent left in the beans would be boiled away during roasting, as the beans reach temperatures above 400 degrees Fahrenheit.  

Coffee deliberately exposed to moisture-laden monsoon winds in an open warehouse for about one year. Monsooning is done to recreate the flavor of coffees once transferred by slow sailing wooden ships from India to Europe around the Cape of Good Hope.  

The thick outermost membrane of the coffee cherry (fruit), similar to the skin of a grape. In the wet, and semi-dry processes, the skin of ripe coffee cherries is removed before drying the coffee beans. In the dry process, the skin is left in place while the whole ripe coffee cherries are dried to allow separation of the dried skin, pulp and hull from the coffee beans.  

Parchment Skin is the hull of a coffee cherry seed that surrounds the "coffee bean". While the parchment skin is removed from the coffee bean, the silver skin, also called chaff, usually remains until it floats away, burns away, or is otherwise separated during the roasting process.  

Coffee beans with the skin and pulp removed, but with the parchment (hull) still attached. Dried parchments are transferred to hulling facilities where the hulls are removed and the beans are packaged in large burlap bags ready for export.  

Unroasted coffee beans that have been sorted, pulped, dried, and separated from the hull.  

The mucilage between the coffee cherry skin and the pit (coffee beans). Coffee cherry pulp has a texture similar to a grapes and is normally dried or fermented to allow easier separation from the coffee beans.  

Removing the pulp as part of the wet process. After picking coffee cherries, the first step of processing, using the wet method, is to remove the skin and pulp. Pulping machines collect coffee beans of ripe cherries while separating the harder green cherries and the skin along with much of the pulp of the softer ripe cherries. Conventional pulping machines have a rotating cylinder that collects the harvested cherries immersed in water and presses them against perforations just large enough for the beans to pass. The beans of the softer cherries are pushed through the perforations, or screen, and collected separately while harder green cherries along with the skin and much of the pulp of the ripe cherries are passed through the machine for further processing.  

Only ripe cherries should be harvested for processing coffee. Ripe cherries are plump and, depending on variety, have a red or yellow color, as shown in the middle two trays of the photograph. Under-ripe cherries are hard and green, while over-ripe cherries have a dark and shriveled appearance. Ripe cherries are separated from under-ripe, and over-ripe cherries, by hand picking and by machine during processing.  

In the semi dry process, the coffee beans are pulped as in the wet process, then the coffee beans with parchment and some mucilage still attached are dried instead of the usual fermentation done in the wet process. After drying, the coffee beans are dehusked (dehulled, separated from the parchment), sorted, and placed in burlap sacks for export. The semi-dry process is common in the islands of Sumatra and Sulawesi, and is sometimes used in Brazil.  

The thin membrane, similar to rice paper, that adheres to coffee beans after removing the husk (hull). Processing may "polish" the unroasted coffee beans removing much of the silver skin. Any remaining silver skin after processing is removed during the roasting process.  

Processed coffees are sometimes hand sorted by grade, or to remove defects.  

The SWISS WATER® Process is a 100% chemical free coffee decaffeination process. Most decaffeination processes use chemical solvents, like methylene chloride (MC). SWISS WATER® Process uses only water when removing caffeine, producing a water processed decaf coffee.  

Wet processed. In the wet process, after the coffee cherry skins are removed, the coffee seeds still have a significant amount of pulp attached which must be removed before the beans are dried and de-husked. The remaining pulp is removed by machine scrubbing, or by placing the coffee into a tank to slightly ferment and loosen the pulp. After fermenting, the pulp is easily washed away with water. Because of the washing involved, wet processed coffees are often referred to as washed.   Video

Equipment for processing harvested coffee cherries by the wet method.  

In the wet process, ripe cherries are first immersed in water where any floating cherries are removed as defective. The remaining cherries are then pressed by machine against a perforated surface, allowing only the seed, and some attached pulp, to pass through the holes. The remaining pulp is then removed by placing the beans in a fermentor to loosen the pulp before washing away the pulp with water. After the pulp is removed, the coffee beans are then dried to about ten to twelve percent moisture content, usually by a combination of sun drying and machine drying. Machine drying is nearly always necessary, especially in damp climates, to prevent mildew. Wet processed coffee is sometimes called washed coffee, in reference to the washing done when separating the pulp from the beans. Also called the wet method.