Pulped Natural Catuaí – Fazenda Pedra Redonda

Halfway between washed and natural, Pulped Natural (Cereja Descascada) originates in Brazil, Honey (Miel) in Costa Rica and Wet Hulled (Giling Basah) in Indonesia.

The harvested coffee cherries are selected either manually or mechanically to remove unripe fruits and foreign matter. They are then depulped.

Pulped Natural coffees have the skin (exocarp) and pulp (outer mesocarp) removed from the cherry, and the beans are placed to dry with their mucilage (inner mesocarp) intact. From here onwards the process is similar to a natural: the sucrose in the mucilage penetrates the beans, and when the desired humidity level is reached, the beans are hulled and left in parchment (endocarp) before being milled and bagged.

Honey processed coffee has varying degrees of pulp left on the parchment during depulping and drying, in ascending order from White, Yellow and Red, to Black Honey. The sucrose in the pulp and mucilage penetrates the beans, and when the desired humidity is reached, beans are hulled and left in parchment before being milled and bagged.

Wet Hulled coffee cherries are usually depulped locally at farm, removing the pulp. They are then placed in tanks for trasportation to the mill, during which a brief fermentation helps break down the pectin, to make wet hulling easier. At this point their humidity level ranges around 35-50%.
The beans are then washed and place to dry in the sun for a couple of days, until they reach 20-24% humidity, where the beans are still humid and soft, and the parchment is semi-dry. The beans are then very carefully hulled and milled, as the drying is faster without parchment and takes only a couple of days to reach 12% (because of the climate they must be moved inside during the humid Indonesian nights). They are then bagged and ready to ship.