Coffee Glossary · Processing
Hulling
The dry-mill step that strips the parchment husk (or, for naturals, the entire dried cherry shell) from green beans, using friction or impact hullers. Hulling exposes the bean for final grading and export — done too early it shortens shelf life, done aggressively it chips and heats beans. Indonesia's wet-hulling (giling basah) is the famous exception: hulling at high moisture mid-drying, which compresses logistics and creates Sumatra's signature profile at the cost of the parchment's protection.
Related terms
Parchment (Pergamino)
The papery protective husk around each coffee seed, exposed after pulping and retained through drying in…
Wet Mill vs Dry Mill
Coffee's two processing stages, often in different places: the wet mill (washing station) handles fresh…
Green Coffee
Coffee in its internationally traded form: the dried, milled seed of the coffee cherry before roasting,…
Decaffeination (Swiss Water, EA, CO2)
Industrial removal of caffeine from green coffee before roasting, targeting 97%+ extraction. Leading methods:…
Hand Sorting
The final human quality gate: workers — overwhelmingly women, at origin after origin — picking defective…
Mucilage
The sticky, sugar-rich fruit layer clinging to parchment after the cherry's skin is pulped away. What happens…
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