OUR PROCESSES

The ripest coffee cherries are picked and placed into a big water-filled funnel to remove any imperfections, which float to the surface. Cherries get funneled into a depulper, which squeezes them through a narrow passage, separting the fruit from the beans. After 12-48 hours of fermenting with their naturally-occuring honey-like outer layer, the beans get washed in a washing channel. Little dams in that channel allow imperfect beans to float away, while the denser, quality coffee sinks to the bottom. Once the coffee has been washed, it gets brought to the dry mill, where it dries on 1,700 raised drying beds we built.

Once ripe cherries have been picked and depupled, we allow them to dry as-is (without removing mucilage) for honey process coffee. Unlike in the washed process, it is important to keep the naturally-occuring honey-like outer layer (mucilage) on the beans for this process. To prevent any fermentation from happening, the coffee must be moved every hour or more while drying in the sun.

We sort, and sort, and sort coffee cherries to ensure only perfectly-ripe ones are used for naturals. Fully in-tact cherries are rushed down the mountain in special boxes with air flow to dry on our raised drying beds. They are consistently moved to ensure even drying. The idea behind naturals is for flavors in the coffee cherry to penetrate the bean and add cupping complexity, with extra notes ranging from blueberry to mango to strawberries. Cherries take about 34 days to dry in the sun.

For carbonic maceration naturals, we pick and sort perfectly-ripe coffee cherries and ferment them first without water (and no air), then with water (and still no air). We check pH and brix refractometer levels often and depart from what much of the specialty coffee industry is doing by using levels that emphasize fruit over funk. We then dry the cherries for approximately 34 days on raised beds.

We do carbonic maceration wine yeast naturals like our carbonic macerations, but we also use white wine yeast! This adds a level of complexity that results in a cup that is tropical fruity, in addition to other awesome notes that were in the beans before fermentation. These coffees change the paradigm of what coffee taste can achieve and can be life-changing for coffee taste enthusiasts.

We've experimented with fruit co-fermentations, culturing with the result of fermenting fruits, and other methods. This method uses previously-fermented watermelon and no other additives (no sugars added as many do to activate fermentations elsewhere!) that is fermented with carbonic maceration coffee. We ensure to not over- nor under-ferment so that maximum complexity and fruit notes are emphasized without weird funkiness. We've found an incredible watermelon note in the result of our process. This is currently the only coffee with which we use a fruit other than coffee.