THE PROCESS IN MOTION

Which share of coffee are we talking about?

Start the scene or choose a stage. The animation simplifies the mechanism; what follows gives the details and the available references.

▶ Play the process01A tiny fraction02The overwhelming majority03No bubbler, no probe04The same parameters05Not tipping over

A tiny fraction

Everything above, from closed tanks onward, concerns only a tiny fraction of coffee: microlots of a few sacks, sold to specialty roasters or entered in competitions.

Read the stages without animation

1. A tiny fractionEverything above, from closed tanks onward, concerns only a tiny fraction of coffee: microlots of a few sacks, sold to specialty roasters or entered in competitions.
2. The overwhelming majorityOf the roughly eleven million tonnes produced each year, the overwhelming majority is processed as ordinary washed or ordinary natural.
3. No bubbler, no probeThose who produce it have no bubbler, the small valve that lets gas out of a closed tank, no probe, no selected yeast. Their stake is not a remarkable profile: it is not losing the lot.
4. The same parametersCenicafé nonetheless works on the same parameters as the showcase farms of Cauca: oxygen, temperature, duration, degree of mucilage breakdown. The objective, however, differs.
5. Not tipping overWell-run control aims first at the absence of defects, not at exoticism. Its first benefit, on a global scale, is not a 90-point lot: it is a harvest that does not tip into defect, for a family whose year's income it is.

To remember: A rigorous protocol serves first to avoid losing the lot, not to make a competition coffee.

Read the full article and its sources ↓

Everything above, starting from the closed tanks, concerns a tiny fraction of the coffee produced: microlots of a few bags, sold to specialty roasters, entered in competitions.

The overwhelming majority of the some eleven million tonnes produced each year is processed as ordinary washed or ordinary natural. Those who produce it have no bubbler, no probe, no selected yeast. Their stake is not a remarkable profile, it is not losing the lot.

Cenicafé nevertheless works on the same parameters as the showcase farms of Cauca: oxygen, temperature, duration, degree of mucilage degradation. The objective differs. Well-run control aims first at the absence of defects, not at exoticism.

The first benefit of a rigorous protocol, on a worldwide scale, is therefore not a 90-point lot. It is a harvest that does not tip into defect, for a family whose income for the year it is.

Cenicafé, Fermentation 9(11):976 (2023); ICO, world production; LC ch. 17b