Processing Coffee

After the coffee cherry is harvested from the tree it must first go through some form of processing to extract the coffee beans from inside the fruit and prepare it for roasting.  The two most common methods are wet processing and dry processing.  More recently a process called pulped natural or semi dry has become a choice of processing coffee and is currently used by only a small fraction of coffee mills in only a few countries. 

The method of processing will depend to a large extent on the weather conditions where the mill is located.  If the weather conditions are humid and water is readily available then wet-processing is used.  Prolonged dry conditions are needed to dry processed coffee.  In locations where water is a scarce resource dry processing is the preferred method.  Also taken into account is the desired cup quality.  There are exceptions to these constraints for determining the type of processing used and Brazil is a perfect example. Here for the most part water is not in short supply yet most of the Brazilian coffee is dry processed.

Back to Table of Contents