Process is where the flavour fingerprint gets set. Origin gives you the raw material. Roasting unlocks it. But it's processing — what happens to the cherry between harvest and export — that decides the body, sweetness, and fruit intensity before we ever touch the drum. This hub decodes all of it.
Washed, natural, honey, wet-hulled, anaerobic, decaf — every method decoded in plain language. Built for guests, wholesale partners, and our own team so we all speak the same language at the bar and on the menu.
Every processing method sits somewhere on a line from maximum clarity to maximum fruit expression. This is the single most useful mental model for understanding process.
All fruit removed before drying. The origin, terroir, and variety speak most clearly. High acidity, clean sweetness, transparent structure. The method that exposes every flaw — and every virtue.
Skin removed, some fruit mucilage left on during drying. Lands between washed clarity and natural richness — honeyed sweetness, rounder body, more forgiving to roast. The middle path with its own character.
Cherries dried whole. Fruit contact through the entire drying period builds bigger body, jammy or winey fruit notes, and lower acidity. The most expressive method — and the hardest to execute cleanly without defects.
Start here. These are the foundational styles you'll see on our bags most often. Each one has its own pattern of sweetness, body, and clarity.
Clean, terroir-first, transparent
Skin and fruit removed before drying. Controlled fermentation and rinsing strip the cherry back to parchment — leaving the green bean's intrinsic character in full view. High-clarity cups where origin and variety speak loudest.
Fruit-forward, textural, expressive
Cherries dried whole on raised beds or patios. Sugars and fruit contact during drying push bigger body and intense fruit when handled carefully — and produce off-flavours when they're not. The highest-risk, highest-reward method.
Between washed and natural — honeyed and round
Skin removed, mucilage left on during drying. How much mucilage is left (yellow honey, red honey, black honey) controls how much fruit character transfers. Rounder body than washed, more clarity than natural — a versatile middle ground.
Indonesia's native method — earthy, heavy, complex
A distinctly Indonesian approach where parchment is removed at unusually high moisture levels before a second drying phase. The result is a heavier body and characteristic earth or spice notes — when handled carefully. Needs tight QC to avoid woody or fermented defects.
Full explainer planned — we want to show the right lots first.
"Live" means the explainer page is ready and linked. "Coming" means we're actively building the guide and won't publish it until we can show real examples from our own sourcing — not just theory.
These methods build on the core styles by adjusting fermentation, oxygen exposure, or yeast environment. We treat them as tools — never gimmicks — and only feature them when they're clean, documented, and purposeful.
Sealed tanks, controlled environment
Cherries or depulped coffee fermented in sealed, oxygen-free tanks. The CO₂ produced changes how fermentation bacteria behave — steering aromatic compounds in specific directions. Can be spectacular or synthetic depending on execution and coffee quality.
Planned explainer: how we vet, buy, and label anaerobic lots honestly.
Wine-inspired, showpiece lots
Whole cherries fermented in CO₂-saturated tanks — borrowed from Beaujolais winemaking. Produces striking, unusual aromatic profiles. Reserved for clearly documented, stable coffees with a strong underlying green quality. Not a trick to hide mediocre raw material.
We'll only publish this when we have the right lots to illustrate it with.
The full picture — not just one piece
Process sets the flavour canvas. Roasting shapes and unlocks it. Brewing extracts it into your cup. These three decisions are always in conversation with each other — changing one changes how the others should be approached.
Decaf isn't one thing. There are several distinct methods with very different implications for flavour, chemistry, and transparency. Here's the overview while the full explainer is in progress.
Chemical-free, water-based, traceable
Green beans soaked in a flavour-charged water solution that draws caffeine out while leaving most flavour compounds intact. 100% chemical-free — our preferred method when we can source it. Originated in Canada, third-party certified.
Naturally derived, Latin America-native
Ethyl acetate derived from sugarcane fermentation is used as the solvent. Naturally sourced EA is considered safe and produces excellent cup quality — many specialty roasters use this as their second-choice method. Common in Colombian origins.
Supercritical CO₂ and methylene chloride — what's what
Supercritical CO₂ uses pressurised carbon dioxide to selectively remove caffeine — expensive but high-quality results. Methylene chloride (MC) is the most common industrial method; we avoid it. Full explainer will cover which methods we accept and why.
The full decaf explainer will live at /learn/coffee-processing/decaf/ and will include which methods we actually use, and links to any current decaf coffees on our menu. No mystery about what's in your night-cap cup.
Processing is one leg of a three-legged stool. Use these explainers alongside our origins hub and roast process guide to see the full picture.
Country-by-country guides that show where each processing style actually appears and why origins adopt them — the complete flavour context.
Process sets the canvas, roast shapes it. 8 steps from green intake to QC cupping — how we work with what processing gave us.
Mocha Java, blend architecture, and more. Honest takes on classic ideas — built from real origins and real processing decisions, not nostalgia.