Once the red coffee cherries have been harvested, they next have to be processed.
Coffee growers have traditionally sold their red coffee berries to local coffee cooperatives or large private plants called beneficios. In this model, the cooperative or beneficio will process and sell the coffee to roasters. Some growers today, however, are beginning to set up their own micro-processing plants and are processing their own coffee. Micro-processing helps the small farmer get a better price for his coffee by eliminating a middle man.
Processing can be accomplished by one of two methods: dry processing or wet processing.
Dry ("natural") processing is the simpler of the two methods. After drying in the sun drying, the coffee must be hulled. The hulling process removes the outer fleshy material from the dried seed. The hulled coffee is then cleaned by a process called winnowing.
Wet (fermented and washed) processing, on the other hand, removes the red skin and fleshy pulp material through a process called pulping. Next, the thin layer of mucilage surrounding the bean is usually removed by a fermentation process. (Wet processing uses and contaminates a large quantity of water. Measures must be taken to carefully clean the water before releasing it to streams and rivers.)
Wet processed coffee must be dried slowly to 10-11% moisture to prevent the bean from cracking. This is done by either spreading the coffee out on large patios and letting it dry from the heat of the sun (takes several weeks), or by being dried in large industrial dryers. The first method is much more energy efficient.
The dried coffee is then hulled to remove the thin parchment around the coffee bean and is often cleaned again by winnowing. Gourmet-quality coffees are then graded by size, shape, odour, density and color.
The dried and graded coffee is referred to as "green coffee beans." The green coffee is bagged in painted burlap sacks weighing 69 kilograms (152 pounds), ready to be exported to coffee-consuming nations.
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