Coffee is one of the most popular beverages in the world and the second highest traded commodity after oil. It's consumed by millions of people every day and there are many different varieties available. However, there are only two common types of coffee processing.

1. sun-dried

2. water-processed.

Let's explore the differences between sun-dried coffee and water-processed coffee.

Sun-Dried Coffee

Sun-dried coffee is also known as natural coffee or more over, sun dried is naturally processed using the sun's heat and humidity to dry the coffee cherries. This process involves harvesting the coffee cherries, laying them out on a large flat surface, and letting them dry under the sun. As the coffee cherries dry, they're turned regularly to ensure that they dry evenly. It is a labor intensive process and provides employed work for local villagers.

No water is permitted to touch the drying cherries throughout the process as it removes certain volatile acids and oils, changing the 'natural coffee' flavour. The sun-drying process can take several weeks to complete depending upon climate conditions. During this time, the coffee cherries are exposed to sunlight and the surrounding air. This exposure can affect the coffee's flavor profile, giving it a unique taste that's often described as fruity and full-bodied. Sun-dried coffee also tends to have a higher natural acidity level than water-processed coffee; these essential acids are not removed during sun curing.

Capulin Cherries are sourced from the finest selection of local shade grown, tropical mountain Arabica coffee trees. The cherries are dried on our patio at high altitude in the hot Mexican sun, being turned frequently and covered at night to protect them from moisture. No essential acids or oils are removed during our hand crafted processing. We pay the highest price for the best cherries and employ the local villagers to process them at a fair rate of pay... win/win. You get the best coffee in the world and the farmers and their families get a living wage.

Please review our video again, please take note in the quality of the cherries we receive from our local farmers... drying on the Capulin mountain top patio

Water-Processed Coffee

Water-processed coffee is also known as washed coffee. This method involves removing the outer layer of the coffee cherry using water. The cherries are first harvested and then run through a machine that removes the outer layer of the cherry. The coffee beans are then soaked in water to remove any remaining fruit, along with many of the natural acids and oils but leaving only the beans.

The washed coffee beans are then dried in the sun or more often using a mechanical dryer. The drying process takes much less time than sun-dried coffee, typically only a few days. Water-processed coffee tends to have a more mellow flavor profile than sun-dried coffee, with less acidity and a smoother finish.

Differences Between Sun-Dried and Water-Processed Coffee

One of the biggest differences between sun-dried and water-processed coffee is the flavor profile. Sun-dried coffee tends to have a more complex flavor, with fruity and floral notes. Water-processed coffee, on the other hand, has a more mellow flavor with less acidity.

Another difference between the two methods is the time it takes to process the coffee. Sun-drying can take several weeks, is labor intensive and time consuming, while water processing only takes a few days. This means that sun-dried coffee tends to be more expensive because of the additional time and effort required to produce it and the natural format in which it is cured, retaining 'all the naturals'.

Finally, sun-dried coffee tends to be more environmentally friendly than water-processed coffee. This is because the sun-drying method doesn't require any additional water or energy to produce, making it a more sustainable option.

Now watch this water processed video noting the quality of the beans... Fast Forward to 2 mins to view this without watching. You will see immedidately why our coffee is superior

Conclusion

It is said that the best cup of coffee is the one you like the taste of the most. Both sun-dried and water-processed coffee have their own unique characteristics and flavor profiles. Sun-dried coffee tends to be more complex and fruity, and is often viewed as a medicine in local culture, while water-processed coffee is more mellow and has less acidity this due some of the medicinal flavinoids, acids and oils being removed during the processing. The processing method used can also affect the environmental impact of producing coffee, with sun-drying being more sustainable and employs local farmers. Ultimately, the choice between sun-dried and water-processed coffee comes down to personal preference and preferred taste however, often unknowingly, your choice is also a matter of ethics...

There is a true cherry called capulin (Prunus salicifolia), when the fruit is dry it looks exactly like a dried coffee cherry.
In Mexico it became a local reference to a particular stage of the coffee seed during the traditional drying process, when it had acheived its highest natural stage of quality.
A stage in which the coffee bean is protected in its dried, sugary skin just before milling.

This is very important to Grasp!

CAPULIN has never been touched by water or alcohol as other commercial washed coffees have!

None of the finest, most subtle flavor oils, sugars, and caffeine alkaloids have been dissolved away.

With CAPULIN you receive 100% of the reasons folks started drinking coffee.

Now, here are a few truths to ponder.In the earliest days of the introduction of coffee in the Americas, only 100% fully mature coffee cherries were picked and spread in the sun to dry, like raisins.
All their natural sugars were dried in.Remembering that all of the inhabitants of the Americas were indigenous peoples when the European conquest of the Americas occurred. Coffee was not here when they arrived.

In most of the Americas, coffee was introduced by the Spaniards, The Portuguese and the Dutch, who brought coffee given to them by the Arabs, who had taken it from Ethiopia and guarded it in Arabia for 800 years prior to releasing it to the western world.

Coffee was introduced as Arabian Wine. Coffee was given to the indigenous peoples of the Americas, but it was given to them as a yoke, to work as slaves.
They worked under the guise of religious converts under the caretaker-ship of the church, or they were owned by the Land Grant Holders whom had been given the indigenous people's lands by the Kings and their courts from foreign countries

The indigenous people's lands were given as favors and part of the spoils to the Royal families supporters, or the lands were taken out right and sold as part of the 'lock, stock, barrel and inhabitants'.
In Mexico, after the struggle for independence from their foreign overseers, followed a hundred years later by a victorious revolutionary struggle for democracy, where the yoke was cast off, when the land was taken from the land grant holders and the lavishly wealthy families controlling

Mexico, coffee took on new meaning. Tracts of land were divided up in part, amongst the various groups whom petitioned the newly established 'Partido Revolutionario Institucional' government.
A group of petitioners could request a tract of land. These tracts of land were referred to as 'ejido lands'. It was how the, once foreign controlled coffee regions and other resources, were re-distributed back into the hands of the 'common people' and the 'mexla' that had formed from the indigenous people's absorption of Europeans, into the new culture of Mexico.

Almost all of Latin America continues to struggle with the major issues of the expropriation of the traditional peoples lands for interests of foreign investments, not just their coffee lands.

In Mexico, after the Revolution, there were no slaves to do the work, labor began to cost money. Faced with the social changes in consciousness and an escalating cost of coffee production, the business world of coffee responded with the implementation of the labor saving water process. A Dutch coffee merchant practice utilizing a long known phenomena, 'Bad Seeds Float'.
With the world wide demand for the finest natural stimulant climbing, the risk of financial loss having been demonstrated to be excessively higher the longer the product is exposed to nature's elements, and whereas the cost of labor, due to the social abolition of slavery, was soaring, changing the way things were done was imperative.

Establishing the 'status quo'. World war II took the world's attention away from domestic changes, every thing was different, everything tasted different,food was produced differently and processed differently too.
By the late forties, nearly all coffee from production regions having water available, was being processed utilizing the practice of fermentation and floating. The public's reaction to the loss of the natural fruit flavor of dry processed coffee, was responded to by the industry with darker and darker roasts, masking the lack of the natural flavor of their coffee.
(Prior to the war, almost all coffee was light roasted.)
Commercially, coffee production no longer occurs with the same high standard, with the sugars dried in. The commercial production uses a process, mostcommonly referred to as 'water processing', or'water-bathing', 'washed coffee or 'cafe lavado'.
Primarily, water processing reduces the financial risk of weather damage, expands the marginal regions that are capable of producing coffee (all be it
marginal in quality) and replaces the labor of the men who traditionally were needed to turn the coffee in the sun every day. The labor force who did the heavy work of piling the coffee up in the evenings, covering it from the dew fall, spreading it out in the sun again in the early morning so it would not grow mold, ferment or sour as it dried. The men's labor was used for moving tons and tons of coffee from one phase of processing to another.

In the traditional dry process, when the coffee cherries were thoroughly dried, again it was the men who used wooden mallets to beat the bean's chaff loose from the seed, sometimestwo stone surfaces were used to mill the beans from their sun dried hull and inner shells. Many a child went to sleep to the rhythmic beat of the mallets that went on long into the night.
But that is not all that the water processing displaces, the work of the families was displaced too.
Along with removing a man's income for his labor, the water processing displaced the socially bonding work of the old people, the women and the children whose hands were used to sort large beans from small and good from bad, a very labor tedious, intensive and costly process, plus they also helped with the picking, the traditional labor of winnowing the chaff from the beans.
There were no other occupations available, there was no other income available to replace their share of the loss of incomefrom the harvest. They have never been able to recover.
Poverty is rampant in paradise villages, the people are being forced to consume every living thing of value within miles of their villages, the trees, the plants, the birds, and then, having eaten the animals, the inevitable, some member of the family has been forced to join the mass migration of the labor force in search of income to send to their desperate families or worse yet, sell their lands.
The old people and the children are forced to travel further and further for sticks for their fires, taking more and moretime and energy in order to survive.
This does not even touch on the millions of gallons of water usurped from village resources and polluted by their water processing.

'Caveat Emptor'.

You can help make a difference!