Washed, Natural or Honey? A Simple Guide to Coffee Processing

You've probably seen words like washed, natural, honey or anaerobic written on a coffee bag. They're not flavours. They describe what happened to the coffee after it was picked—and they can have a surprisingly big influence on what ends up in your cup.

ripe coffee cherries

You've picked the coffee cherries. They're ripe. They're beautiful. Now what? Well…You can't roast them. At least, not yet. Before coffee reaches the roaster, the fruit surrounding the seeds needs to be dealt with. This stage is called coffee processing. And it is one of the most important parts of the coffee journey.

What's actually inside a coffee cherry?

The thing we call a coffee bean is actually a seed. Read more about the coffee plant here. It sits inside a fruit – the coffee cherry. From the outside in, the cherry contains several layers. There's the skin. Then the fruit or pulp. Then a sticky layer called mucilage. Then a protective layer called parchment. And finally, inside all of this, are the coffee seeds.

The processing method determines how much of that fruit is removed, when it is removed and how the coffee is dried. And that can have a big influence on the final cup.

Three main approaches

When you look at specialty coffee, you'll most commonly encounter three terms:

Washed

Natural

Honey

They're not flavours. They're processing methods. And although there are many variations and experimental techniques, these three give us a useful starting point.

Washed coffee

Let's start with washed coffee.In a washed process, the outer skin and pulp are removed from the coffee cherry relatively early. The coffee then goes through a process designed to remove the remaining mucilage before the seeds are dried. Traditionally, fermentation and washing are used to separate the mucilage from the parchment. The result is coffee that has been cleaned of most of the fruit before drying. 

So what does washed coffee taste like? Well, there is no single "washed flavour". 

But washed coffees are often associated with:

Clean cups

Bright acidity

Clarity

More defined origin characteristics

This makes the process particularly popular when producers want the character of the coffee itself to shine through.

Our Peru Jaen Lot No.2, for example, is a washed coffee from the Jaen region in Cajamarca, produced from varieties including Bourbon, Catimor, and Caturra .

Natural processing

coffee cherries drying

Now let's go to the other extreme. With a natural process, the coffee cherry is dried more or less whole. The fruit remains around the seed while the coffee dries. Think of it a little like raisins. As the cherries dry, the fruit interacts with the coffee seeds inside. Once the drying process is complete, the dried fruit is removed. 

Natural processing can produce coffees with:

Fruit-forward flavours

More body

Intense sweetness

Berry or tropical fruit characteristics

But again, there is no guarantee. A natural coffee doesn't automatically taste fruity. The variety, climate, ripeness, drying conditions and roasting all contribute to the final result.

Our Brazil Mogiana Alta, for example, is naturally processed and is described with notes of dark chocolate, walnut and stone fruit.

Our Rwanda Kirambo is another natural coffee, with a profile featuring red fruit, honey and chocolate.

Honey processing

And then there's honey. Despite the name, there are no bees required. Honey processing gets its name from the sticky mucilage that remains around the coffee seed. The skin and some of the fruit are removed, but some mucilage remains during drying. This creates something between the traditional washed and natural approaches.

Depending on how much mucilage remains, you may hear terms such as:

Yellow honey

Red honey

Black honey

These terms generally describe how much fruit material remains and how the coffee is dried, although terminology and practices can vary between producing regions.

Honey coffees can combine some of the cleanliness associated with washed coffees with additional sweetness and body.

Fermentation

Here's where coffee processing gets even more interesting. Fermentation isn't necessarily a processing method on its own. It's a biological process that can form part of different processing techniques. Microorganisms break down sugars and other compounds in the coffee fruit. Producers can carefully control factors such as time, temperature, oxygen and the environment in which fermentation occurs. Modern specialty coffee has pushed this much further. 

You may now see coffees described as:

Anaerobic

Carbonic maceration

Extended fermentation

Yeast inoculated

These experimental techniques can produce some seriously unusual coffees.

But they also require a high level of control.

Drying – the part nobody should underestimate

Whatever processing method is used, the coffee eventually needs to be dried. And this is critical. If coffee dries too quickly, too slowly or unevenly, quality can suffer.

Producers may dry coffee on:

Raised beds

Patios

Mechanical dryers

Or a combination of methods. The coffee needs to reach an appropriate moisture level and remain stable during storage and transportation. This can take days or, depending on the process and conditions, considerably longer.

It's not just a case of leaving the coffee in the sun and hoping for the best.

Processing changes the flavour

This is the important bit. Imagine two batches of coffee from the same farm. Same variety. Same altitude. Same soil. Same harvest. But one is washed and the other is natural. They can taste dramatically different. That is because processing becomes another variable in the flavour equation. 

And that's one reason specialty coffee is so fascinating.

You can take the same raw ingredient and change what happens to it after harvesting – and end up with a completely different experience in the cup.

There isn't a "best" process

Just like there isn't a single best coffee variety, there isn't one processing method that is always superior. A washed process might be perfect for one coffee. A natural process might bring out the best in another. A producer might choose a particular method because of the climate, available water, drying facilities, labour, market demand or the characteristics of the coffee itself. The processing method is part of the producer's craft.

Look at the bag

Next time you buy specialty coffee, don't just look at the country. Look for the processing method.

You might see:

Ethiopia – Natural

Colombia – Washed

Brazil – Natural

Costa Rica – Honey

Suddenly that little word on the bag becomes much more interesting. It tells you something about what happened between the coffee tree and the roastery.

From processing to roasting

Eventually, the dried coffee becomes what we call green coffee. It's stable enough to be stored, transported and eventually shipped to a roaster. And this is where we get involved.

At Al-Gharb Coffee Roasters, we roast different coffees according to their individual characteristics because every origin and processing method brings something different to the table. A natural coffee may need a different approach from a washed coffee. A dense high-altitude coffee may behave differently from a coffee grown at lower elevation. The roaster's job is not to make every coffee taste the same. It's to help each coffee show what it can do.

And that is the journey:

Plant → Cherry → Harvest → Processing → Green Coffee → Roasting → Brewing → Cup

Not bad for a little seed.

— Henning Al-Gharb Coffee Roasters, Algarve

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