Ready to pick. Typically, a coffee plant is visited five times during the harvest season, in order to pick only the ripest cherries. After depulping the unhulled beans are soaked in tanks to segregate floaters and wash away mucilage. Very desirable fermentation occurs at this stage. Our beans are washed in collected rainwater rather than in mountain streams, eliminating a source of bean contamination and watercourse pollution.
Beans can also be dry processed, which is easier and cheaper, but yields lower quality.
It takes fourteen suns before the washed beans are ready to be hulled and sorted. They are dried outdoors on hardwood platforms and concrete patios. To get to market quicker, some producers in other countries use wood-fired ovens to hasten drying, thus preventing varietal nuances from developing naturally, compromising flavor. This is not so great for the forests where the firewood is cut either. The Specialty Coffee Association of America classifies five grades of coffee beans, depending upon taste, acidity, body, aroma, and the absence of defects and cup faults.