Coffee Processing Methods: Washed, Natural and Honey Explained

Ever wondered why two coffees from the same country can taste so different? Apart from variety and roast, the answer is often the processing method — what happens to the coffee cherry between picking and drying. Once you can read that one word on a bag, choosing beans gets much easier.

What Is a Coffee Processing Method?

Coffee beans are the seeds of a fruit. Processing is the set of steps that removes the skin, pulp and sticky mucilage from the seed and dries it into the green bean a roaster buys. It happens at the farm or washing station straight after harvest, and it strongly influences the coffee's flavour, body, acidity and aroma.

Three methods dominate specialty coffee:

• Washed (wet) process
• Natural (dry) process
• Honey (pulped natural) process

The Washed Process: Clean, Bright and Transparent

The washed process is the most controlled of the three. It is prized for clean, bright coffees where you taste the variety and the place it grew.

How it works

1. Sorting. Ripe cherries are sorted, often by floating them in water to remove unripe or damaged ones.
2. Pulping. A machine strips the skin and most of the pulp, leaving the beans coated in mucilage.
3. Fermentation. The beans rest in tanks while enzymes and microbes break the mucilage down, usually for 12 to 72 hours.
4. Washing. The beans are rinsed with clean water until the mucilage is gone.
5. Drying. Still in their parchment layer, the beans dry on raised beds or patios to about 10–12% moisture.

How it tastes

• Acidity: higher and more vibrant — citrus, apple, tart fruit.
• Body: lighter, with a clean mouthfeel.
• Flavour: crisp and transparent, often floral or citrusy, with a clean finish.

On Bloom Daily, washed coffees include Jpresso's Colombia Supremo, Guatemala Antigua and Ethiopia Yirgacheffe Aricha Webanchi, and Richman's Kenya Thiriku, which is given a light roast for filter coffee.

The Natural Process: Fruity, Full-Bodied and Sweet

The natural process is the oldest method. The whole cherry dries with the bean still inside, so sugars and fruit flavours pass from the fruit into the seed.

How it works

1. Sorting. Ripe cherries are hand-sorted to remove unripe and overripe fruit.
2. Drying. Whole cherries are spread on patios or raised beds in the sun and turned regularly so they dry evenly and do not go mouldy. This can take several weeks.
3. Hulling. Once the cherries are dry and look like raisins, the skin, pulp and parchment are removed in one step.

How it tastes

• Acidity: lower and softer, often like ripe fruit.
• Body: heavier, syrupy or creamy.
• Flavour: jammy berries and tropical fruit, chocolate, sometimes a wine-like note, with a lot of sweetness.

Natural coffees on Bloom Daily include Jpresso's Brazil Cerrado and Sumatra Mount Kerinci Natural, and Richman's Classico, a Brazil Yellow Bourbon roasted for espresso, and Ethiopia Bensa Sidama, roasted for filter.

The Honey Process: Between the Two

The honey process, strongly associated with Central America, sits between washed and natural. The name comes from the sticky, honey-like mucilage left on the bean during drying, not from any honey flavour.

How it works

1. Sorting and pulping. As with washed coffee, the cherries are sorted and the skin is removed.
2. Mucilage kept on. A chosen amount of mucilage is left on the parchment, usually without fermenting in water.
3. Drying. The sticky beans dry on raised beds or patios and need frequent turning, because the sugary coating spoils easily.

The amount of mucilage left on decides the "colour" of the honey:

• Yellow honey: least mucilage, quickest drying. Brighter and cleaner.
• Red honey: more mucilage, slower drying. Sweeter with more body.
• Black honey: most mucilage, slowest drying. Closest to a natural, with the heaviest body.

How it tastes

• Acidity: balanced, soft and rounded.
• Body: medium to full, often silky.
• Flavour: sweet and complex — caramel, fruit and chocolate, with a cleaner finish than a natural.

Honey coffees on Bloom Daily include Jpresso's Sumatra Kerinci Honey and Richman's Honey Blend, which pairs natural and honey-processed coffees from Brazil and El Salvador.

Beyond the Big Three

• Wet-hulled (giling basah). The traditional method of Sumatra. The parchment is removed while the bean is still at about 30–35% moisture and the bare bean finishes drying. The result is earthy, herbal, low in acidity and full-bodied. Jpresso's Mandheling G1 is a wet-hulled coffee.
• Anaerobic fermentation. The coffee ferments in sealed tanks without oxygen, which can produce intense, sometimes boozy or funky flavours.
• Carbonic maceration. Borrowed from winemaking: whole cherries ferment in sealed tanks filled with carbon dioxide, often giving vivid fruit notes.
• Yeast and barrel fermentation. Selected yeasts, or time in a spirit barrel, are used to steer the flavour in a chosen direction.

On Bloom Daily these experimental processes are found among the green (unroasted) beans supplied by Beansology — for example Yunnan Lan Chang Tian Hao Anaerobic Natural, Panama Blackmoon Geisha Anaerobic Natural and the yeast-fermented Colombia Monteblanco lots. See the full green coffee list.

How to Choose by Processing Method

Don't just look at the origin and roast level. Every coffee in the Bloom Daily shop lists its process:

• For clarity and bright acidity: choose a washed coffee.
• For bold fruit and a heavy body: choose a natural.
• For balanced sweetness: choose a honey process.
• For an earthy, low-acid cup: choose a wet-hulled Sumatran.

A good way to learn is to taste one origin processed three ways. Jpresso's Sumatra Mount Kerinci comes as washed, honey and natural lots, so you can brew them side by side and taste what the process alone changes. Browse all of them in the single origin coffees.

For more on where the beans come from before they reach the roaster, read Green Bean Sourcing in Malaysia, and for a newer method in detail, What Is Cold Fermentation?