Processing methods, decoded from the label

Every bag in the review log names a process, and the process predicts the cup at least as strongly as the origin does. This guide covers the terms you will meet in the log’s filter, in roughly ascending order of intervention.

Washed (full wash)

The fruit is stripped from the seed before drying, usually with a fermentation soak to loosen the last of the mucilage. What survives is the coffee itself: variety, soil and altitude, presented without makeup. Washed lots score high on clarity and acidity, and they expose sloppy roasting instantly. When a review here praises “clean” structure, it is almost always a washed coffee.

Natural

The whole cherry dries around the seed for weeks. Sugars and ferment flavours migrate inward, giving the heavy berry and winey character that makes naturals easy to love and easy to overdo. Ripe berry sweetness is the prize, sloppy drying delivers the compost bin, and the gap between those two outcomes is wider than for any other method on this list.

Honey

A middle path. The skin comes off, some fraction of the sticky mucilage stays on through drying. Yellow, red and black honey grades mark how much was left and how slowly it dried, with black the most fruit-forward. Expect washed-style structure carrying extra sweetness and body. Several Indonesian lots in the log use “honey mosto” hybrids, which push further toward ferment.

Wet-hulled (giling basah)

Indonesia’s signature. The parchment is stripped while the bean is still wet, then drying finishes in the open. The cup gains weight, earth and spice, and trades away some brightness. Traditional Mandheling profiles come from this method. The modern Indonesian lots that dominate this log increasingly avoid it, chasing cleaner cups through washed and anaerobic routes instead.

Anaerobic

Fermentation in sealed, oxygen-starved tanks, sometimes with temperature control, sometimes with added yeast or bacteria cultures. At its best the tank layers cinnamon, tropical fruit and a syrupy sweetness over the base coffee. Overdriven ferment flattens everything into one boozy signature and the origin disappears. The log’s Indonesian anaerobics show both outcomes, which is why the score spread on them is wide.

Carbonic maceration

Borrowed from Beaujolais winemaking: whole cherries ferment in a carbon-dioxide-flushed tank, so fermentation starts inside each intact fruit. The results are loud, distinctive and polarising, with lychee, wine and florals at the top end. One Everhaos lot in the log runs a 42-hour carbonic maceration with white wine yeast and lactobacillus, which tells you how experimental the Indonesian scene has become.

Reading a label with this in mind

Process names promise a shape, and the reviews test whether the coffee keeps that promise. A washed lot that tastes muddy, or an anaerobic that tastes of nothing but ferment, loses points against its own claim. That is the standard applied across every entry in the log.