What is Honey Process?

If you haven’t come across honey-processing, let us assure you it has nothing whatsoever to do with actual honey (however good that might sound!).

It’s a traditional and fairly rustic way of processing a coffee, generally resulting in a heavier texture, a fuller fruit flavour and a mellower acidity than a “washed” coffee cousin.

How is it done? Simple. With washed coffee, the fruit mucilage (the “honey” layer that remains clinging to the seed’s outside after it is liberated from the pulp and cherry skin via a depulper) is removed either mechanically or via rapid fermentation, allowing the parchment coffee to dry without external fruit influence. “Honey” coffees on the other hand are dried with the fruit mucilage (honey) left intact. 

Here is how Ahmed describes the process: “During Harvest time we collect the product by picking only the mature and fully red coffee cherry seeds one by one on the coffee tree & we put it in Baskets. After that We transfer or put in the coffee in bucket with full of pure water and we separate the mature seeds from the immature one. The mature seeds come to sink the others [remain] on top. We pulp the mature seeds by pulper machine without adding water, We use seeds own natural water [mucilage]. There is no tank and no fermentation. We keep the pulped natural [aka ‘honey’] coffee under the shade for 24 hours . After that we [lay] pulped coffee on the bed … to dry by sun. it may takes a week up to 10 days. With in these processes we used only natural equipment there is no chemical contamination.”