How much do you know about the coffee you drink?

Regardless of how harvesting is done, coffee cherries need to be processed so they don’t spoil. The route selected depends mainly on the weather, location and access to labour. Humans ultimately utilise the methods to hand, with the environment and climate often dictating the outcome. In hot dry locations without excessive humidity, cherries are spread out on concrete patios, dirt fields or raised beds and simply allowed to dry after harvesting. This is the Natural method. Raking and turning the cherries is important to avoid mould growth and promote even drying, but nothing much more is needed apart from sun. The cherries will shrivel naturally, and the skin and fleshy material will darken. De-pulping will separate the seed from the dried fruit material releasing the coffee beans.

My garden is on its way to becoming a frog sanctuary and it rains often so my environment could not be less ideal for this method. It feels laissez-faire though, unfussy and is based on faith that the sun will deliver. These coffees will often develop unique flavours closely related to the fruit materials enveloping the beans during drying. With natural processed coffees, you can taste the ghost of the fruit and the sun; the echo of the processing environment. This is used often in Ethiopia and Brazil, the flavours are fruit-driven with citrus, berry, sweetness and a heavy body. These coffees may be perceived as not greatly refined but they offer sassy quirkiness.

The Honey method is clever and greedy; a way of handling coffee cherries somewhere between a natural and a washed process. It’s wanting the cake and eating it too. Farmers want both the acidity of a Washed coffee and the sweetness and body of a Natural. De-pulping takes place after harvesting removing skin and some flesh from the seeds, leaving the sticky sweet mucilage; hence the name, but no actual honey. The beans enveloped in this sticky layer are dried slowly. The amount of flesh and mucilage determines acidity, sweetness, body and the beans’ appearance after drying; they can look white, yellow, red or black. More coffee cherry material left on the outside, the darker the colour. This requires control, knowledge and is used by farmers who experiment to achieve unique flavours driving quality and price. Deviations exist as environmental adaptations and a way of humans pushing ingenuity to the limit. Is that all? Well, there are other methods, variations of the three main ones and I have simplified. I could say semi-washed, pulped natural, wet hulling but you have suffered enough. Processing coffee is labour intensive, after drying beans go through further handling, sorting and grading by weight, colour, shape. This can be done manually or mechanically. Again, an idyllic image can be conjured where every step is artisanal and lovingly handled to the sound of “The Lark Ascending”. The reality that delivers the coffee volume to satisfy the worldwide need for a latte is dusty and noisy where vibrating beds, drying drums, sorting screens scream to the beat of the “Warrior’s Dance” by the Prodigy.

The method ultimately used is linked to tradition, location, climate and often accidents. Monsooning is unique to India and the recreation of an accident to satisfy those who grew to love coffee aged during the long journey in the bowels of wooden ships sailing to Europe. It exposes already dried coffee beans to the Monsoon winds carrying moisture. It happens slowly in ventilated warehouses with coffee spread out in thick layers and raked often. The beans swell up to almost twice their original size because they absorb moisture gradually and the colour turns pale. This coffee is peculiar, the acidity dies and instead it offers earthy, musty, pungent flavours and a heavy body. When did musty stop being a fault and was rebranded as aged? Drinking a Monsoon coffee is like tasting the roulette of chaos; only for the brave. With a few modifications, this could work in my wet and windy garden, but I doubt I could grow coffee trees in ankle-deep water. Instead, I will drink coffees from resilient producers who come up with sustainable processing alternatives achieving a point of difference and transforming coffee flavours beyond the ordinary so I too can sigh at that first sip.