Today
How should today's names be read?
Start the scene or choose a stage. The animation simplifies the mechanism; what follows gives the details and the available references.
Anaerobic, carbonic maceration, thermal shock, co-fermentation: none of these words is defined by a body. What has moved since 2020 is first of all measurement. The pH, the acidity of the medium, falls as the microorganisms produce their acids; the Brix, the sugar concentration read with a refractometer, says what is left for them to consume; the temperature says how fast they are working.
Read the stages without animation
- Measuring while it worksAnaerobic, carbonic maceration, thermal shock, co-fermentation: none of these words is defined by a body. What has moved since 2020 is first of all measurement. The pH, the acidity of the medium, falls as the microorganisms produce their acids; the Brix, the sugar concentration read with a refractometer, says what is left for them to consume; the temperature says how fast they are working.
- Comparing with a controlTwo controlled studies of the effect of oxygen have been published, Vale in 2022 and Cenicafé in 2025: controlled means compared with a control, with a single parameter changing from one lot to the next. They put numbers behind a word, anaerobic.
- Proof of transferHadj Salem's work, between 2020 and 2022, showed that added aromas do get into the bean. The question is no longer whether it is possible, but how it is labeled.
- What remains a black boxThe 2023-2024 rules diverge, each competition drawing its own boundary. And it is still not known how temperature, pH and oxygen direct the succession of microorganisms: we know how to do it, we do not know how to explain it.
To remember: No process name is defined by a body: what has moved is the measurements, the proof of transfer and the rules.
Read the full article and its sources ↓In 2025-2026, the vocabulary of processes is the most sophisticated in the whole history of coffee: anaerobic, carbonic maceration, thermal shock, co-fermentation, micro-oxygenation.
And none of these words is defined by any body. Anyone can write any of them on a bag.
That said, three things have really moved since 2020, and it would be unfair to see only marketing packaging in them.
Measurement. Tanks are now monitored for pH, Brix and temperature. These three quantities can be read while the fermentation is working, instead of being guessed at the time and then confirmed in the cup.
Each says one precise thing. The pH, that is, the acidity of the medium, drops as the microorganisms produce their acids, and thus gives a numerical marker of progress. The Brix, that is, the sugar concentration read with a refractometer, says what is left for them to consume. The temperature says how fast they are working.
Two controlled studies of the effect of oxygen have also been published: Vale in 2022, Cenicafé in 2025. Controlled means compared against a control, with a single parameter changing from one lot to another. This is still rare here, where most protocols announce expected effects rather than measured effects.
These two publications give no official definition to any of the words printed on the bags. At least they put numbers behind one of them, the anaerobic process.
The proof of transfer. The work of Hadj Salem between 2020 and 2022 showed that added aromas do pass into the bean. This result shifted the whole debate: the question is no longer whether it is possible, but how it is labeled.
The rules of 2023-2024, which diverge from one another, each competition drawing its own boundary.
What remains is what has not moved an inch, and the list is long. The relationship between altitude, temperature and duration is still not quantified. The honey colors are still not standardized. The water consumption of traditional washed processing still ranges from 5 to 200 liters per kilo depending on the source, a factor of forty.
And fermentation remains, by the admission of its own researchers, a black box: no one knows how temperature, pH and oxygen direct the succession of microorganisms. We know how to do it, we do not know how to explain it.
Yang et al. 2026, p. 14; publications cited above; LC ch. 17b, as of August 12, 2026