All About Coffee

by William H. Ukers

Drying Grounds, Pulping House, and Fermentation Vats, Boa Vista. Brazil

Pulping House and Fermentation Tanks, Costa Rica
COFFEE PREPARATION IN CENTRAL AND SOUTH AMERICA

Granada Unpulped Coffee Separator
Shown in combination with a Guatemala coffee pulper

Coffee is said to be "in the husk," or "in the parchment," when the whole fruit is dried; and it is called "hulled coffee" when it has been deprived of its hull and peel. The matter forming the fruit, called the coffee berry, covers two thin, hard, oval seed vessels held together, one to the other, by their flat sides. These seed vessels, when broken open, contain the raw coffee beans of commerce. They are usually of a roundish oval shape, convex on the outside, flat inside, marked longitudinally in the center of the flat side with a deep incision, and wrapped in the thin pellicle known as the silver skin. When one of the two seeds aborts, the remaining one acquires a greater size, and fills the interior of the fruit, which in that case, of course, has but one cellule. This abortion is common in the arabica variety, and produces a bean formerly called gragé coffee, but now more commonly known as peaberry, or male berry.

The various coverings of the coffee beans are almost always removed on the plantations in the producing countries. Properly to prepare the raw beans, it is necessary to remove the four coverings—the outer skin, the sticky pulp, the parchment, or husk, and the closely adhering silver skin.

There are two distinct methods of treating the coffee fruits, or "cherries." One process, the one that until recent years was in general use throughout the world, and is still in many producing countries, is known as the dry method. The coffee prepared in this way is sometimes called "common," "ordinary," or "natural," to distinguish it from the product that has been cleaned by the wet or washed method. The wet method, or, as it is sometimes designated, the "West Indian process" (W.I.P.) is practised on all the large modern plantations that have a sufficient supply of water.