Natural process coffee is coffee dried with the whole fruit still attached to the bean, rather than washed off first. It's also called the dry process. The cherry dries around the seed in the sun, and that contact shapes what ends up in your cup.
What Is Natural Process Coffee?
Start with what happens at the farm. When coffee is picked, each cherry is a small piece of fruit with a seed inside — that seed is the coffee bean. Most processing methods are really just answers to one question: how much of the fruit do you take off, and when?
Natural processing takes the simplest possible answer: none of it, not yet. The whole coffee fruit is left intact to dry after being harvested, and the cherries are set out straight away to dry in the sun skin-on. In the natural or dry process, the cherries dry with all the fruit attached to the beans.
That's not just a storage decision. As the fruit dries, the beans receive flavor from the fruit pulp and sugars as part of their development. Carlos Juárez, a Master Roaster from Mexico, puts it down to a slow migration of sugars from the cherry toward the bean during the drying stage.
It's also slow. Drying may take two weeks or longer to achieve the desired result of the fruit being completely dried around the bean. During that stretch the coffee may be dried on raised beds or tables, or laid out on drying patios — and somebody has to look after it the whole time.
Natural vs Washed vs Honey: How the Three Processes Differ
Once you know the fruit stays on in a natural, every other method starts to make sense as a variation on one decision. Three widely used processing methods differ in one concrete, physical way: what gets removed from the cherry before drying starts.
| Process | What is removed before drying | In our lineup |
|---|---|---|
| Natural (dry) | Nothing — the cherries dry with all the fruit attached to the beans | Ethiopia Natural, a full natural dried on raised beds |
| Pulped natural / honey | A depulper machine removes the outer skin and some of the mucilage | Brazil Santos, processed pulped-natural and sun-dried |
| Washed | Skin and fruit mucilage are partially or fully removed from around the bean | Colombia, fully washed and solar dried |
One word from that table worth unpacking, because you'll see it on coffee bags everywhere: mucilage. Mucilage is the sticky, sugar-rich fruit material around the bean; in washed processing the skin and mucilage are partially or fully removed. It doesn't always come off in one go: if the coffee has only been depulped, it's fermented in tanks for 8 to 72 hours, depending on each origin's conditions and methods, to break down what's left.
Honey processing sits between the two extremes, and it's a topic of its own — we've written a full guide to honey processed coffee if you want to go further down that road.
Broadly speaking, coffees that dry with the cherry attached will be fruitier, sweeter, and heavier-bodied. That's a general tendency rather than a guarantee, and it's worth holding loosely — processing is one variable among many.
What One Roaster Notices in the Cup
Stephen Gray, Head of Coffee at Origin Coffee Roasters, puts the difference this way: "Generally speaking, washed coffees have more acidity, cleaner and better flavour clarity, and a less pronounced body". "Conversely," he continues, "natural coffees have a fuller body, lower acidity, and a more intense sweetness, but with less subtlety or clarity".
Gray also points out that the fruit shows up differently even when two coffees share a tasting note. In his experience you would find more crisp, fresh fruit and floral flavours in washed coffees, and deeper, ripe, or stewed fruit flavours in natural coffees, with a "booziness" or "funk" to them.
Why Naturals Divide People
Leaving the fruit on the bean while it dries in the sun has consequences. Some fermentation will inevitably occur, affecting the flavor of the coffee in a range of ways from pleasingly fruity to downright funky.
That range is exactly why naturals are polarising. As Neil Oney, Coffee Quality Manager at StoneX Specialty Coffee, observes, "Especially as fermented flavours become more and more dominant, the chances that someone will love or hate these coffees increases".
How a Natural Coffee Is Actually Dried
Drying a natural well is closer to tending a garden than to leaving fruit in the sun. The routine changes as the cherries change.
Early on, the cherries are kept no more than 3 inches thick, so that they can get good air movement, and they're moved every 3 to 4 hours so that the bottom and top dry equally.
After three to five days, the coffee begins to feel like rubber — like a gummy bear, in fact. At that point the cherries can be piled 5 to 6 inches thick along the bed to open up space. The turning doesn't stop, but it slows: the coffee still has to be moved at least twice a day to ensure it dries uniformly.
The finish line is a number, not a look. According to Perfect Daily Grind's guide to drying naturals on raised beds, "it's important to dry the coffee to less than 11% moisture content".
Ethiopia, Arabica's Centre of Diversity — and Our Sidama Natural
Ethiopia's claim on coffee itself runs deep. The montane rainforests of south-western Ethiopia are the primary centre of diversity of Coffea arabica, according to research published in the peer-reviewed literature by Aerts and colleagues. Wild coffee generally occurs between 1500 and 1900 m, while cultivated plants in Ethiopia are found over a much wider range, between 1000 and 2800 m.
Our Ethiopia Natural comes from elsewhere in the country. Sidama is in the south of Ethiopia, a separate growing region from the south-western forests above, and elevation there ranges from 1,500 to 2,200 metres above sea level. In Sidama, both washed and natural processed coffees are common, with washed processing slightly more popular — so a Sidama natural is a deliberate choice, not a default.
The regional signature is distinctive. In general, in Sidama you find spice in the coffees, along with fine acidity and lasting flavors of lemon and bergamot.
That's the tradition our Ethiopia Natural comes out of. It's grown by smallholder farmers in the Sidama zone, who cultivate indigenous heirloom cultivars at 1700–1900 M and harvest full natural beans that are hand-sorted and dried on raised beds — the same slow, tended process described above. Roasted to a medium-light level, the cup lands on milk chocolate, fruity, and caramel notes.
Roasting a Natural Is a Different Job
Getting the fruit dried is only half the story — the coffee still has to be roasted, and naturals bring their own personality to that stage too. For Mark Michaelson, a natural is a different job in the roaster — one he describes in terms of slowing down.
Mark Michaelson, 2017 U.S. Roaster Champion and Roaster at Onyx Coffee Lab, frames the risk in terms of caramelisation: if it passes too quickly, he says, a lot of that sweetness in the coffee is left out, because there's no chance to caramelise those sugars. The fix is patience — "by extending this moment, and also first crack, you can enhance the aromas, sweetness, and body". For Michaelson, the biggest challenge these coffees present is making sure he goes slow enough, allowing the coffee to really develop in roasting.
Roast level is a story of its own — for the background, our guide to the difference between light and dark roast coffee covers it.
How to Brew a Natural Process Coffee
Here's the good news after all that farm-level complexity: your part is easy. Nothing exotic is required — standard, careful brewing lets the fruit show up on its own.
- Grind medium, about the texture of kosher salt, for drip.
- Measure it. The National Coffee Association's "Golden Ratio" is 1 to 2 tablespoons of ground coffee for every 6 ounces of water. On a pour-over, the association gives 1 gram of coffee to 13–16 grams of water.
- Mind the water temperature. The National Coffee Association cites the SCA standard of 93 ± 3°C — roughly 200°F.
- Let it bloom. Wet the grounds and wait: the bloom is done after about 30–45 seconds, once the coffee grounds have stopped bubbling as carbon dioxide escapes.
Then taste it black before you decide anything about it — milk first can bury the fruit you paid for.
Try One for Yourself
The fastest way to understand natural processing isn't reading about it — it's tasting it. Brew a natural and a washed coffee side by side, same grind, same ratio, same water, and the difference stops being theoretical. Start with our Ethiopia Natural, a Sidama full natural that's hand-sorted, dried on raised beds, and roasted medium-light to milk chocolate, fruity, and caramel notes. Put it next to our Colombia, which is fully washed and solar dried. And if you find yourself curious about the middle ground, our Brazil Santos is processed pulped-natural and sun-dried for an elegant, smooth cup with cocoa notes.
FAQ
What does "natural process" mean in coffee?
It means the coffee was dried with the whole fruit still on the bean. The whole coffee fruit is left intact to dry after being harvested, and in the natural or dry process the cherries dry with all the fruit attached to the beans.
Is natural process coffee sweeter than washed coffee?
Often, but treat it as a tendency rather than a rule. Broadly speaking, coffees that dry with the cherry attached will be fruitier, sweeter, and heavier-bodied. Stephen Gray of Origin Coffee Roasters describes natural coffees as having a fuller body, lower acidity, and a more intense sweetness, but with less subtlety or clarity.
How long does natural processing take?
Drying may take two weeks or longer to achieve the desired result of the fruit being completely dried around the bean. The target is to dry the coffee to less than 11% moisture content.
Does natural process coffee taste fermented?
Sometimes, and that's part of the method. Some fermentation will inevitably occur, affecting the flavor of the coffee in a range of ways from pleasingly fruity to downright funky. As Neil Oney of StoneX Specialty Coffee notes, as fermented flavours become more and more dominant, the chances that someone will love or hate these coffees increases.
