Blog Post

How Is Bali Blue Coffee Processed?

This is where Bali Blue gets really interesting. Most specialty coffees are processed using washed (wet) or natural (dry) methods. Bali Blue uses a third method called wet-hulling (locally called Giling Basah), which is almost exclusive to Indonesia.

Here's how it works:

1. Hand-picking — only ripe cherries are selected, picked individually by farmers who know their trees
2. Pulping — the skin is removed from the cherry shortly after harvest
3. Short fermentation — the mucilage (sticky fruit layer) is allowed to ferment briefly, then washed off
4. Partial drying — the parchment-covered bean is only partially dried before the next step
5. Wet-hulling — while the bean still has high moisture content (around 30–50%), the parchment is removed by machine. This is what gives Indonesian coffees their characteristic body and earthiness — and the distinctive blue-green color of the green bean
6. Final drying — the exposed bean is then dried to the target moisture level on raised beds

The result is a coffee with lower acidity and a heavier, more syrupy body than you'd get from washed coffees of similar roast levels. It's the wet-hulling process, as much as the origin, that makes Bali Blue taste the way it does.