Harvest Journal

A heads up for further reading...Byron Holcomb of Young Tree Coffee has another outstanding article featured in the current Barista Magazine (April/May 2009). You may peruse it here (pages 66-71) or go to Barista Magazine to subscribe to this periodical for coffee professionals.

This is the second installment of his Harvest Journal, the story of his bold plan to develop his own coffee farm in the Dominican Republic and to help to bring coffee from the DR to the specialty coffee world stage - an endeavor few Baristas from the United States would strive to accomplish.

The first installment featuring his trials, tribulations, and victories at Finca La Paz was in the August/September 2008 issue of Barista Magazine (pages 22-25). You may find more information at Holcomb's website.

Finally...The Coffee Bean!!!

With all this talk of plants, cherries, and fruit, how do we get to our faithful coffee bean? Inside each pretty red "cherry" from the coffee plant there are typically two coffee beans nestled, flat sides together, protected by the skin and pulp of the fruit.

It is the process of gently extracting the beans from the remainder of the fruit that is described as being "wet" or "dry." How a coffee is processed is one of the important aspects that can affect the flavor of the coffee in your cup!

Wet processing involves soaking the beans and allowing some level of fermentation to occur. What is left is then allowed to dry, usually in the sun, while being raked. Once dry, the remains are beaten to remove the beans from the pulp, mucilage, and other leftovers from the fruit. The green beans are then separated and screened thoroughly, often by hand, before being checked for quality and packaged into barrels or bags for distribution.

Dry processing differs in that it involves drying the cherry on raised screens or patios, with or without some level of mechanical or hand-removal of the fruit and mucilage to expose the parchment-covered cherry. Since the parchment contains sugar, fermentation still occurs, though at a slower rate than the wet-processed beans. Dry processing is the traditional method used in Ethiopia as well as parts of Central America, and is becoming a more widely-used technique in small farms to add new and different flavor profiles to their specialty coffee.