The Coffee Cherry: What's Inside and How It Shapes Your Coffee

Every coffee bean starts life as the seed of a fruit: the coffee cherry. Most cherries hold two seeds, and those seeds are what get dried, roasted and ground into your coffee. How the fruit around them is removed has a big effect on how your coffee tastes.

The coffee plant

Coffee grows on shrubs or small trees with glossy, dark green leaves. After white, jasmine-scented flowers, the plant produces clusters of cherries that ripen from green to red (or yellow, orange or pink in some varieties). Pickers usually choose only the ripe ones, because ripe cherries make sweeter coffee.

What's inside a coffee cherry?

From the outside in, a coffee cherry has these layers:

1. Skin (exocarp): the thin outer skin that turns red when ripe.
2. Pulp (mesocarp): a thin layer of sweet fruit.
3. Mucilage: a sticky, sugary layer that clings to the seed. It plays a big part in fermentation and flavour.
4. Parchment (endocarp): a papery shell around each seed.
5. Silverskin: a very thin film on the bean itself. Bits of it come off as chaff during roasting.
6. Seed: the green coffee bean, ready to be dried and roasted.

What is a peaberry?

Sometimes only one seed develops inside the cherry, and it grows small, round and pea-shaped. These "peaberries" make up around 5% of coffee. Some roasters sort them out and sell them on their own.

How processing changes the taste

After picking, farmers have to remove the fruit and dry the seeds. The way they do it is called processing, and it's one of the biggest influences on flavour.

• Washed: the skin and fruit are removed before the beans are dried. Washed coffees taste clean and bright, and show off the coffee's acidity.
• Natural: the whole cherry is dried in the sun, and the fruit is removed afterwards. Natural coffees are fruity, sweet and full-bodied.
• Honey: the skin is removed but some of the sticky mucilage is left on while the beans dry. Honey coffees sit in between: sweet and rounded, with a gentle fruitiness.

Processing needs care. If the fruit ferments too long or the beans dry unevenly, the coffee can taste sour or musty, which is why good farms and mills watch every batch closely.

Nothing goes to waste

The dried skin and fruit of the cherry, called cascara, can be steeped like a tea. It has a light, fruity taste, a little like hibiscus or dried cherries.

Next time you read the tasting notes card in your box, look for the processing method: it's a great clue to how your coffee will taste. Find out more in our guides to the 4 main types of coffee beans, Ethiopian coffee and Central American coffee.