Shadowing Practice: Lessons in Coffee Processing - Processing Methods Comparison - Learn English Speaking with Video

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Hi, my name is Emma Sage and I'm the Technical Services Manager at CQI.

Today I'm going to be talking about a comparison of the main processing methods.

At CQI, to understand coffee processing, we use the anatomy of the coffee fruit and seed because when you understand the anatomy,

you can really describe what is happening during any coffee process.

At At CQI, we use the technical name of the process in our curriculum, which is the column on the right,

natural, honey, mechanically demucilaged, washed, and wet -hulled.

However, you can think of these also botanically, and that is sort of the column on the left.

It's based on the last layer of coffee during the end of drying, so the drying phase.

What is the layer that is present during drying?

There's fruit dried coffee, which means the whole fruit is still there and that's natural.

There is a mucilage dried coffee, which is pulped and the pulp is actively removed or the pulp

and part or the whole of the mucilage is removed mechanically.

In the case where the pulp is actively removed,

that's usually a honey coffee in the case where the pulp and part or whole of the mucilage are removed mechanically.

That's mechanically demucilaged coffee.

There's also parchment dried coffee, which is pulped, but then the mucilage is removed using biological processes.

We call that fermentation.

That is known as the wash process.

Finally, we have seed dried coffee, which is pulped, but then hulled while the coffee is still relatively wet and its name is Wet Hulled.

We're going to go through each of these.

First, the wash process.

This is also known as parchment dried or the wet process.

The flavor profile for this is theoretically floral, sour, citrus fruit, and people refer to it as clean tasting.

This process was developed in the 1850s during the Industrial Revolution

and it was developed in the Caribbean and popularized in Central America to handle higher volumes of coffee.

Now it's used all over the world.

The natural process, otherwise known as fruit dried coffee or dry processed coffee,

we consider sort of the original coffee process because before pulpers and demucilators were developed,

there was just coffee dried in the fruit or in the pod.

And theoretically, these coffees are fruity, whiny, and have fermented notes.

Since coffee originated in Ethiopia, or Arabica anyway, this was traditionally used there, and now everywhere around the world that grows coffee.

However, until recently, this process was mainly used in regions that had water limitations.

Now there's much more experimenting with untraditional or newer processing methods in areas of the world, even if they have lots of water.

Next is honey.

Honey is also known as mucilage dried because it's dried with the mucilage on.

It's also known as pulp natural.

The flavor profile of honey coffees are theoretically fruity, but there's really a large range of profiles.

The honey process can mimic sort of a washed profile, and it can also mimic a natural profile.

It just depends on how that coffee is processed.

Some people say that you take more mucilage off and it more closely resembles a washed coffee.

You leave more mucilage on, it more closely resembles a natural coffee.

And that can be true, but it's not always true.

Depends on lots of other things during processing.

This was developed in Brazil and then also later popularized in Costa Rica,

mainly due to the Costa Ricans trying to deal with some water conservation regulations.

And then we have mechanically demucilized coffee.

This is mucilized dried, otherwise known as pulp natural.

The flavor of mechanically demucilized coffees are theoretically fruity, and they also can have a large range of flavor profiles.

What's the difference between a honey coffee and a mechanically demucilaged coffee?

The mechanically demucilaged coffee has gone through a demucilager.

That is the easiest way to tell.

Now, some people that make honeys make them with demucilagers.

And in that case, I guess, they would be both mechanically demucilaged and honey coffees.

You really just have to ask the right questions.

And again, this technique, this process was developed in Brazil, and it's now used all over the world.

Finally, we have

Wet Hold Coffee.

This one is very unique and is lesser known,

but has such a unique and different and notable processing method

that we included here as one of our five main processing methods.

You can consider it a seed dried coffee

because the coffee is actually hulled so the parchment's taken off while the coffee still has a relatively high moisture content.

This photo on the right is of coffee drying as I like to call it as the naked seeds

So there's no parchment anymore on those seeds, but they are still out on the drying bed.

Theoretically, this results in a musty, earthy, herb -like, chocolatey flavor profile with a heavy body.

And this process is almost exclusively used within Indonesia.

It really seems to have developed to deal with the humid climate in Indonesia

because there was a lot of problems drying coffee in a safe amount of time.

So one way to get the coffee to dry faster would be to remove a moisture barrier, which is the parchment.

You remove the parchment, the naked seed can dry faster.

So it saves time, it saves patio space, and it probably saves spoilage.

Now you know the five main processing methods that we teach at CQI.

This information is part of our CQI Q Processing Level 1 Generalist class.

The course is a classroom -based class, and the information is like this, only there's a lot more.

We have coffee tastings.

We also cover harvesting, sorting, much more in -depth on the processing methods,

chemistry, etc. It's designed for those of us who work on the consuming end of the chain.

Our Q Processing curriculum also includes a Level 2 and Level 3 classes.

The level two is our farm level class and it's for people who work regularly with processing at the mill,

hopefully with decision making power so they can go back to their place of work

and implement changes based on the new information that they gained in our course.

The expert class is a really intensive year long course that includes a remote semester, a field intensive and a capstone project.

It's for processors, mill owners or managers, and innovators and leaders in coffee processing.

Thank you very much for learning about the five main processing methods with me today.

If you want to check out our Q Processing curriculum and all of our other education opportunities at CQI, please visit our website.

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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

This speaking lesson is built on the video “Lessons in Coffee Processing - Processing Methods Comparison”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: coffee, processing, process, dried, mechanically. This video has 85 sentences and 1122 words to shadow. The speech runs for 7:32. The speaker talks at a steady 149 words per minute, a comfortable pace for shadowing. Only 78% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is demanding.

Key vocabulary in this video

15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:

Word	Pronunciation	Meaning
honey noun	/ˈhʌni/	A sweet, viscous, gold-colored fluid produced from plant nectar by bees, and often consumed by humans.
pulp noun	/pʊlp/	A mixture of wood, cellulose and/or rags and water ground up to make paper.
flavor noun	/ˈfleɪvə/	The quality produced by the sensation of taste or, especially, of taste and smell in combined effect.
theoretically adverb		in theory; on paper
hull noun	/hʌl/	The outer covering of a fruit or seed.
wash verb	/wɑʃ/	To clean with water.
curriculum noun	/kəˈɹɪk.jə.ləm/	The set of courses, coursework, and content offered at a school or university.
naked adjective	/ˈneɪkɪd/	Bare, not covered by clothing.
layer noun	/ˈleɪ̯ɚ/	A single thickness of some material covering a surface.
mill noun	/mɪl/	A grinding apparatus for substances such as grains, seeds, etc. (Some are small and simple, and some are large and complex.)
seed noun	/siːd/	Any propagative portion of a plant which may be sown, such as true seeds, seed-like fruits, tubers, or bulbs.
column noun	/ˈkɒləm/	A solid upright structure designed usually to support a larger structure above it, such as a roof or horizontal beam, but sometimes for decoration.
actively adverb	/ˈæktɪvli/	In an active manner.
depend verb	/dɪˈpɛnd/	To be contingent or conditioned; to have something as a necessary condition
intensive adjective	/ɪnˈtɛnsɪv/	Done with intensity or to a great degree; thorough.

Phrasal verbs you will hear

Word	Meaning
go through verb	To travel from one end of something to the other.
check out verb	To record the departure or withdrawal of someone or something (such as guests, employees, books, etc.).
go back to verb	To stem from; to originate in.
take off verb	To remove.

Grammar in this video

The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:

Structure	In the video
Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it	is pulped · is removed · are removed
Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing	curriculum, which is · coffee, which means · coffee, which is
Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now	have fermented · has gone

Pronunciation to watch

The speaker uses 3 contractions and reduced forms, such as I'm, we're. Say them the short way, as you hear them.

The “sh” and “zh” sounds: wash /wɑʃ/, regulation /ˌɹɛɡjʊˈleɪʃən/, conservation /ˌkɑnsə(ɹ)ˈveɪʃən/, traditionally /tɹəˈdɪʃ.ə.nə.li/, limitation /lɪmɪˈteɪʃən/
Long words — get the stress right: curriculum /kəˈɹɪk.jə.ləm/, anatomy /əˈnætəmi/, experiment /ɪkˈspɛɹ.ə.mənt/, regulation /ˌɹɛɡjʊˈleɪʃən/, conservation /ˌkɑnsə(ɹ)ˈveɪʃən/

How to practise with this video

Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
Shadow it sentence by sentence at normal speed, repeating each one until your rhythm matches the speaker.
Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like honey, pulp, flavor.

What is the Shadowing Technique?

Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.

Shadowing technique: read the full step-by-step guide →

Shadowing Practice: Lessons in Coffee Processing - Processing Methods Comparison - Learn English Speaking with Video

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