Tag Archives: Natural Process

Coffee of Matagalpa & Matagalpa Coffee Tour

November 4, 2018

“Café de Matagalpa 1862” celebrates Matagalpa’s coffee heritage. The coffee is naturally dried in its fruit and roasted to a Full City profile, producing flavors associated with dried fruit, prunes, chocolate and caramel.

Café de Matagalpa 1862

• Roast: Full City Plus
• Process: Natural or unwashed; the whole coffee cherry is dried with its skin and pulp intact.
• Fermentation: Alcoholic fermentation begins before sun drying and continues while the fruit dries.
• Varieties: Red Catuai and Caturra
• Origin: Arenal, Matagalpa, Nicaragua
• Altitude: 1,450 meters
• Lot: Single farm lot
• Flavor: Prunes and chocolate
• Aftertaste: Chocolate and caramel

The project began at the Municipality of Matagalpa Coffee Festival on October 24, 2015, with the goal of demonstrating ways to dry coffee in the whole fruit using an unwashed process.

How the natural process works

Only ripe cherries are selectively picked by hand. The whole cherries are then transported to sun-drying patios without being depulped. Drying takes approximately five weeks because moisture must first leave the pulp and then the seed.

After drying, the coffee is hulled and classified according to density, screen size, variety and growing altitude. For natural-process coffee, density sorting generally occurs at the dry mill because whole cherries float during water-based selection.

• Target green-coffee moisture: Approximately 10–12%
• Screen-size range stated by the source: 13/64 to 20/64 inch
• Classification factors: Density, screen size, Arabica variety and altitude