Coffee Processing: Extracting the Beans

Coffee Processing: Extracting the Beans
Up to a year may pass before newly formed coffee cherries reach full ripeness and are ready for the harvest.

Before the beans become a steaming cup of coffee, they must be extracted from the coffee cherries. Then they must be roasted. And some cases, they must be decaffeinated.

The fruit of the coffee plant is a many splendored thing. The beans are encased in five different layers, The outer skin that holds it all together is thin and a bit bitter tasting.

When fully ripe, the fruit inside the skin is slightly sweet and very similar in texture to a grape.

Next, there’s a slick sticky layer, called mucilage for obvious reasons, which coats a tough paper-thin layer known as parchment.

The final very thin layer is the silverskin, which clings to the beans for dear life.

It’s not easy to release the beans from their five layered prison, but it must be done. There are two means of performing this feat – the Washed Coffee Method and the Dry Coffee method.
Coffee Processing: Extracting the Beans