Our goal is to reimagine the coffee industry and make it better for everybody. This is why we work direct with coffee farmers from the magical mountains of Northern Malawi ☕ 🇲🇼
We operate a small coffee washing station in Nkhota village, Northern Malawi. We work directly with Tiko Coffee Collective, a group of 48 small holder, speciality coffee farmers to weigh, grade and process amazing coffee cherries of all different varieties. Consider us Specialty Coffee Processors.
Coffee processing is the removal of the outer layers that surround the coffee seed. To understand a coffee cherry, picture a peach. There’s the skin, the fruit, a weirdly-textured “pit” and - inside of that pit - a seed. The coffee seed is separated from the rest of the fruit and outer pit, and then roasted to become the coffee you know and love.
As speciality coffee processors we highlight the difference processing technique and coffee variety make to your morning brew.
That’s why we offer the same beans, grown from the same farms but processed in three very different ways.
There are three main ways to separate – or process - the coffee seed from the rest of the coffee cherry. Where it gets interesting to coffee drinkers is that each processing technique changes the final flavour of that coffee dramatically.
Natural Process
This is the oldest form of processing. The whole coffee cherry, fruit’n all, is left out in the sun to dry, then the dehydrated fruit and surrounding parchment are stripped from the seed. This infuses the beans with tropical, bright fruity notes.
Honey Process
The coffee cherry is thrown into a pulper machine that strips most of the fruit away, leaving a sticky, honey-like coated pit. Those sticky pits are left to dry in the sun. Honey processed coffees have characteristics of both Natural and Washed beans; they are usually fruit forward with low acidity and intense sweetness.
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