Structure of the coffee cherry
It has the following seven layers from the inside to the outside:
- Bean
- Silver skin
- Parchment skin
- Pectin layer
- Pulp
Coffee that has been stripped down to the parchment skin and dried is known as parchment coffee.
To obtain green coffee, various layers have to be removed from the coffee cherry. This includes the fruit skin, the pulp, the mucilage, the parchment skin and the silver skin. There are two types of processing: dry and wet processing. Further information on this will follow in a later section.