During the washing process, the harvested coffee is taken and placed in a filtering tank while water is pumped through, pushing the cherries down a funnel where any debris that floats on the surface is discarded, leaving only perfectly ripe fruit.
De-pulping: The ripe cherries then have their outer skin mechanically separated. This skin, also called pulp, is collected and used as fertilizer for the farms and pastures. The coffee is now a bean surrounded by an inner layer of parchment (or pergamino) and a sticky fruit layer called mucilage.
Mucilage Removal: The mucilage on the beans is removed through a gentle rubbing of the beans against each other and a screen, until only the coffee beans surrounded by the protective parchment remain.
The beans in parchment sit wet in a holding tank overnight, ready to be set out to dry the following morning.