Arguably one of the consequential conundrums of the specialty coffee world is how coffee producers, roasters, and professionals alike, describe their coffee processing and fermentation techniques.  In fact, since the writing of this article, there are over 334 unique processing term identifiers in Bean Base, many of which have key similarities when described in layman’s terms.

From a consumer standpoint, this lack of terminology coherence is confusing and frustrating.  And when it comes to making a coffee database, one that strives for ultimate data consistency, the situation is simply unacceptable.  Therefore, a major cornerstone of today’s update is bringing some clarity to all this madness. 

The solution was simple, but time consuming.  What I have done is categorized every unique processing term identifier found in Bean Base, into 53 unique categories.  Then, each bean in Bean Base is automatically given its respective “Processing Tags” based on the roaster provided process name and description when available.  You can see all the new Processing Tags in the “Processing Filter” of Bean Base Version 3.0.  

After it was all said and done, the result was extravagant.  Not only was process filtering a whole lot more powerful, one of the unexpected findings of this endeavor was discovering how often roasters will under describe their processing names and how Bean Base attempts to provide more clarity.  

Commonly, roasters will label their coffee process as simply “washed” or “natural” but in reality, this coffee may have gone through an intensive CO2 flushed, anaerobic, or yeast inoculated fermentation cycle giving the resulting coffee a funk which, as a consumer, you may have not expected.  Now, Bean Base Version 3.0 will give the beans proper labels such as “Carbonic Maceration”, “Anaerobic Fermentation” or “Yeast Inoculated”, giving you a better idea of what to expect in the cup. 

Tip: You can see Processing Tags for each individual bean by expanding the chosen row in Bean Base. 

Just a few caveats :  

• The processing terminology used is not a declaration that the industry should start using these terms as the correct ones.  The terminology is merely the most common ones found in Bean Base.
• Processing tags may be inaccurate.  Tags are automatically given based on the description provided by the coffee roaster.  Furthermore, there are numerous occasions where processing description is not available, therefore no additional tags on top of the “Process Name” will be provided. 

Please try out the new Process Filtering in Bean Base Version 3.0 and let me know your thoughts!