Coffee Fermentation Methods
This article is available online in audio form at MotherEarthNews.com
Coffee is one of the most heavily traded export commodities in the world. It grows in about 70 countries, within a relatively narrow area just north and south of the equator. Broadly speaking, two species of coffee are commercially cultivated: Coffea arabica (Arabica) and C. canephora (robusta). Arabica represents approximately 60 percent of the world’s coffee production, and it also represents most of the coffee used in the specialty coffee industry.
Coffee’s ripe cherry-like fruits have to go through a series of steps to get to the seeds (what we see as raw green coffee) that are shipped later. Three different methods are used to take coffee from the fruit to the exportable green coffee: the wet process, the dry process, and the semi-dry process. These processes distinguish themselves from each other by the internal bean’s contact with the outside fruit; water usage; factors that influence a
