WET HULLED PROCESS

Wet-hulled process is a hybrid coffee method used in parts of Indonesia, especially Sumatra. It results in a dark, opal-green coffee with little silverskin clinging to it, and a particular low-acid, earthy, heavy body flavour profile. In this method, the farmer picks ripe coffee cherry, pulps off the skin and either dries it immediately for one day, or lets it sit overnight in a bucket (with our without water), then washes it the next day and dries it. In either case, the coffee is partially dried with some or all of the mucilage clinging to the parchment- covered seed. It is then sold at a local market to a coffee processor. They receive coffee at 40-50% moisture content, then dry it to 25-30%, and run it though the wet-hull machine. Friction strips off the parchment, and the bean emerges swollen and whitish green. Then it is dried on the patio down to 11-14% moisture, ready for sorting, grading, bagging and export.