The Monk of Mokha

by Dave Eggers

Natural, or dry processing, was the more ancient process, believed to have originated in Yemen and still practiced there. As its name promises, it involves no water. The cherries would be dried on flat beds, usually some kind of latticework like a metal screen, and when dry, they were hulled—run through a rudimentary machine to remove all the layers from the bean. Because the beans weren’t washed, they retained some of the mucilage, and because the beans spent more time inside the fruit absorbing its flavors, dry processing resulted in a fruitier but far less predictable taste. For generations this has been both the bane and boon of Yemeni coffee—it could be either wonderfully rich or of such rough quality that its merits were obscured. After the beans were processed, they were bagged and left to rest. They needed to rest, Mokhtar learned, because the processing was traumatic for the fruit—traumatic for the fruit!—and after such a traumatic process, they needed time to recover. They were still alive, remember, Mokhtar was told. They were seeds, remember. They could still produce a coffee plant. So the resting period can last anywhere between three and six months.