Washed vs natural coffee is many times the first choice you'll see on a bag, and it's the one that changes the cup most. Washed coffee has the fruit stripped off before being washed and dried and tastes clean, bright and transparent when done right. Natural processed coffee is dried inside the whole fruit and tastes sweeter, heavier and fruitier.
What "processing" means
A coffee bean is a seed inside a small fruit often referred to as coffee cherry. When the cherry is picked it's sweet, sticky and full of water, and it has to become a dry, stable seed before it can get packed and exported to a roastery. Everything that happens between the tree and that dry seed is called processing. Along with the variety and where the coffee grew, it's the biggest influence on how a coffee tastes. The two classic methods are washed and natural; honey sits in between.
Washed coffee, step by step
- Depulping. Normally within 6-24 hours of picking, the cherries go through a machine that crushes/squeezes the skin and most of the pulp off the seeds.
- Fermentation. The seeds, still coated in a slippery layer of fruit called mucilage, rest in tanks for half a day to two days. Natural enzymes and microbes break the mucilage down so it can be rinsed away.
- Washing. There are many methods to rinse and wash the coffee after fermentation with one of the most common being that the coffee is pushed through channels of clean water. This grades it by density and leaves a clean, bare seed inside its parchment shell.
- Drying. The parchment coffee dries on raised beds for one to 3-4 weeks, turned by hand, until it reaches around 10 % moisture.
Kenya goes one step further. At Thunguri in Kirinyaga the coffee ferments for 16 to 18 hours and is washed. Then it rests under clean water overnight before drying — the "double washed" method that gives Kenyan coffees their extraordinary clarity. A method that has been implemented in many other coffee growing regions around the world.
Natural process coffee, step by step
- Sorting. There are a few different ways to sort the cherries. Sometimes when the access to water is sparse the cherries are sorted by hand before going into the de-pulper. Another way of sorting the cherries are to float them in water and sort out the "floaters" so that only ripe, undamaged fruit goes to the processing.
- Drying, whole. The entire cherry — skin, pulp and seed — is spread thinly on raised beds and dried in the sun for two to five weeks. It's turned many times a day so nothing moulds or over-ferments.
- Hulling. Once the fruit has shrivelled into a dark, raisin-like husk, a machine removes it in one go, husk and parchment together.
While the fruit dries, sugars and aromatics from the pulp migrate into the seed. That's where the natural's signature comes from: the strawberry, blueberry and tropical notes that were never in a washed coffee to begin with. It's the oldest method there is, and it's how coffee was made long before anyone built a washing station.
Washed vs natural: how they taste side by side
- Washed: clean, bright, precise. You taste the variety and the soil — florals, citrus, black tea, stone fruit, berries. The acidity is lively and the finish is clean and elegant when done well. Our Kenyan and washed Ethiopian coffees are the good example.
- Natural: sweet, round, heavy. The fruit is up front — ripe berries, ripe tropical fruit, sometimes a winey, almost boozy note. The acidity is softer and the body is fuller.
The easiest way to learn the difference is to taste one of each from the same region on the same morning. Try a washed Chelchele next to Halo Natural — both from Gedeb in Yirgacheffe, a few kilometres apart — and the difference is obvious in one sip.
Water, and why it matters on the farm
There's a practical difference behind the two methods that rarely reaches the cup but matters a great deal on the farm. Washing uses a lot of clean water, and the run-off from the fermentation tanks is acidic enough to damage a river if it isn't managed. Naturals use almost none, which is why they're the tradition in dry places like Harrar and much of Brazil. But they need weeks of reliable sun and a lot of labour turning the beds. One bad rain can ruin a lot.
Neither is simply the greener option. What decides it is the climate a farm actually has, and increasingly the water it can count on.
Where honey and anaerobic coffee fit in
Honey processing removes the skin but leaves some of the pulp on during drying, and lands between the two — sweeter than washed, cleaner than natural. Anaerobic fermentation, carbonic maceration and cherry resting are extra steps that can go in front of any method. They get their own section in coffee processing methods explained →
Which should you choose?
If you drink your coffee black and like it bright and clean, start with washed. If you like sweetness and fruit, or you take milk, a natural will hold its own. As espresso, both work — a washed coffee makes a sharp, aromatic shot, a natural a sweeter and rounder one. If you're not sure, the process is listed on every product page, and our filter coffees usually include one of each.
Common questions
Is natural coffee sweeter than washed?
Usually, yes. The sugars from the drying fruit end up in the seed. It isn't added sweetness — it's the fruit's own.
Does washed coffee have more caffeine?
No. Processing changes flavour, not caffeine. Variety, roast and how much coffee you use matter far more.
Which is better, washed or natural coffee?
Neither. A great washed coffee and a great natural are both great. What ruins a coffee is bad execution — unripe cherries, careless drying — not the method. What we look for, whichever route a producer takes, is that the coffee still tastes of somewhere.
The coffees we roast
Washed: Kenya Thunguri AA and the other Kenyan lots we buy each season, plus the washed Ethiopian lots from Chelchele. Natural: Halo Natural from Gedeb, back each spring. In between, the honey coffees from La Lia and Monte Copey in Costa Rica. Browse our filter coffees →
