Once ripe red cherries are present on the mature coffee plant, they are ready for harvesting. Estate coffee farms harvest the ripe cherries by hand to ensure even, mature beans for harvesting.
After harvesting, the cherries are processed to separate the bean from the fruit. Beans are put through one of two methods---the “dry” (natural) process or the “wet” (washed) process.
During the “dry” process, ripe cherries are left to dry in the sun on pads or concrete patios and are then put into hullers, which remove the dried pulp. This primitive method is easier and cheaper for the farms, resulting in a poorer quality of coffee that is earthy and can taste dirty.
Ripe cherries that undergo the “wet” process are passed through a pulping machine that removes the seed from the pulp and skin, which are washed away with water. The seeds are then soaked in tanks and fermented to eliminate the slippery mucilage still covering the bean. The wet beans are air dried in racks or laid out in the sun to dry or machine dried, before being put through the huller to remove the protective parchment-like coating and the thin, inner silver skin. This process is more costly and requires more care, but helps the intrinsic quality of the bean, resulting in higher quality, more expensive coffee
