What is Natural Coffee? Natural Coffee Explained!

Process means the way the coffee is transformed from a fruit on the tree, to a dried bean ready for roasting. The coffee bean is a seed from the fruit, commonly called a coffee cherryOriginally coffee literature referred to the fruit of the tree as a "berry" but in time it became a cherry. It is of course neither. Nor is the... (and in some places still called a coffee berry). To get that seed from the fruit, and dried so that it can ultimately be roasted, is where the coffee bean must be processed. Read on…

There are to main methods called wet processingThe removal of the cherry and parchment from the coffee seed.: Coffee is either wet-processed (also called washed or wet-milled) or dry-processed (also called wild, natural or natural... and dry processing. Wet-processed coffee is called “washed coffee” at times, while dry-processed coffee can be refered to as “natural coffee” in some instances.

The main issue is that the seed, or green coffeeGreen coffee refers to the processed seed of the coffee tree fruit. Coffee is a flowering shrub that produces fruit. The seeds of the fruit are processed, roasted,... bean as we call it, is wrapped in a couple outer layers, notably the parchmentGreen coffee still in its outer shell, before dry-milling, is called Parchment coffee (pergamino). In the wet process, coffee is peeled, fermented, washed and then ready for drying... layer (endocarp). A layer of pectin and fruit mucilageMucilage indicates the fruity layer of the coffee cherry, between the outer skin and the parchment layer that surrounds the seed. It readily clings to the inner parchment... clings tenaciously to the parchment layer. Think of the way the fruit clings to the plum pit / stone in some varieties. It’s slippery/slimy and you can’t even scrape it off.

There are two major ways coffee is processed around the world (and of course many variations).
In wet-processing (pictured) the coffee is pulped (which means the outer fruit skin is peeled off), and the fruit-covered seed is held in a tank or bin of some kind to fermentAs an aroma or flavor in coffee, ferment is a defect taste, resulting from bad processing or other factors. Ferment is the sour, often vinegar-like, that results from.... The goal of fermentationFermentation in coffee processing traditionally referred to the stage in wet-processing of the coffee. We now understand that fermentation happens more broadly in nearly all processes, including honey... isn’t to create flavor, it’s simply to break down the fruit layer so that it can be washed away from the parchment-encased green bean.
The dry-process approach is much simpler! The coffee cherryEither a flavor in the coffee, or referring to the fruit of the coffee tree, which somewhat resembles a red cherry.: Either a flavor in the coffee, or... is laid in the sun to dry. That’s it! The fruit dries out, the green bean inside shrinks away from the parchment layer. Then, when fully dry, all the outer layers are stripped off the green bean.