Natural

This is coffee's original process, as old as coffee drinking itself. In Ethiopia and Yemen, cherries have been picked and laid whole in the sun for centuries, on rooftops, patios and raised beds, turned by hand until they dry into hard, raisin-like husks. Everywhere coffee is grown with scarce water and strong sun, from Harrar to Brazil's vast patios, the natural survived because it needs nothing but weather and patience.

For much of the twentieth century the commodity trade treated naturals as the rustic option, prone to defects when drying goes wrong. The specialty era turned that on its head. Done carefully, with ripe picking and slow, even drying, the fruit ferments gently around the seed and loads the cup with berry sweetness, body and perfume that washed coffee cannot reach. Ethiopian naturals and Brazil's best dry-processed lots made the method fashionable again, and raised drying beds are now a signature of quality farms worldwide.