What is wet processing (washed processing) of coffee?

What is wet-processed (Washed / Wet processed) coffee?

- When you buy coffee, or visit a coffee shop, you may be told that the coffee is processed in this or that way, so it is better or worse than others.

- Or, if you are passionate about coffee and have done some reading, you will see there are many ways to process coffee.

- Or you may hear somewhere that coffee has to be wet-processed to taste the best.

In this article, Greenfields Coffee explains the basics of wet processing of coffee and some pros and cons of wet processing.

1. The whole cherries are picked, then the outer pulp is removed to get the parchment coffee together with the mucilage layer, which is rich in sugar.

2. The parchment is soaked in water to ferment. Once fermented enough (about pH 4.5), the mucilage is washed off. By this point the mucilage has broken down, so it separates easily from the parchment beans.

3. The parchment is then dried, usually on raised beds, until it reaches the standard moisture of 11.5%, then it is finished and stored.

Advantages of wet processing:

- A very clean cup (Mouth Clean)

- Bright acidity (Bright Acidity)

- Consistent (Straightforward)

- Fermentation is easy to control

- Dries quickly, avoiding mold

And the disadvantages:

- Less of the complex, diverse flavors created by fermentation compared with other methods. This is clearly noticeable during cupping.

- Uses a lot of water and pollutes the environment.

- Labor-intensive and costly.