By now most of the specialty coffee consuming public knows that there are such things as washed and natural processed coffees—and to a lesser extent honeyed—and the majority would probably be able to give you some sort of description of the difference between the two in terms of flavor. (And if you don’t, don’t worry. Consider joining our newsletter to be part of the Sprudge Coffee Club, where you will receive discounts on all manner of coffee from some of the best roasters around.) But if you were to ask most folks to describe what exactly goes into these processes, you’d probably end up with a lot of blank stares.
Cafe Imports is looking to change that. Ever the purveyor of educational coffee videos, over the course of the next week, June 3rd through 6th, Cafe Imports will be releasing a new series called “Coffee Processing” that explains the four major processing methods found in specialty coffee, and a preview has been released today.
Averaging a little under six minutes a video (a 23 minute total run time), the video series explains the processing methods by following them each step by step as they happen at origin. The videos cover: the washed process at Finca Ecológica in Agua Colorada, Cajamarca, Peru; the natural process at Halo Fafate Washing Station at the Worka Cooperative in Gedeb, Ethiopia; honey processing at Las Lajas micromill in Sabanilla de Alajuela, Costa Rica; and semi-washed (or wet hulled) processing at the Bergandal Mill in the Gayo Highlands of Sumatra.
Starting on Monday, Cafe Imports will release a new video every day at 2:00pm CT on their YouTube channel and via their website. They will be released in the other of: Washed, Semi-Washed, Natural, and Honeyed. For now, a preview of the entire Coffee Processing series will have to hold you over.
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You don’t need to be a coffee roaster—or a coffee professional at all for that matter—just coffee curious in order to find these videos useful. Coffee beans just don’t fall off the tree ready to be roasted; a lot of work goes into getting them into a usable state, and the Coffee Processing series gives a better idea of exactly what that work is.
Zac Cadwalader is the managing editor at Sprudge Media Network and a staff writer based in Dallas. Read more Zac Cadwalader on Sprudge.
Top image via Cafe Imports
Disclosure: Cafe Imports is an advertising partner with the Sprudge Media Network
