Coffee Glossary · Processing
Mucilage
The sticky, sugar-rich fruit layer clinging to parchment after the cherry's skin is pulped away. What happens to mucilage defines processing method: fermented and washed off (washed process), left partially on to dry (honey process), or kept inside the whole cherry (natural process). Its sugars feed fermentation, which — controlled well — develops clarity or fruit complexity, and — controlled badly — produces vinegar and ferment defects. Demucilage machines can strip it mechanically, trading character for consistency and water savings.
Related terms
Parchment (Pergamino)
The papery protective husk around each coffee seed, exposed after pulping and retained through drying in…
Washing Station (Wet Mill)
The facility where fresh cherry becomes parchment coffee: reception and flotation, pulping, fermentation…
Coffee Cherry
The fruit of the coffee tree — a small drupe that ripens from green through yellow to deep red (or…
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…
Hulling
The dry-mill step that strips the parchment husk (or, for naturals, the entire dried cherry shell) from green…
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