Glossary - green or raw coffee

Ambers: Smooth yellowish beans caused by soil conditions.

Antestia-damaged: Beans damaged by the Antestia bug, resulting in black depressions on the bean which is often completely shrivelled.

Black beans: Caused by harvesting immature beans or gathering them after they have dropped to the ground. Blacks are often taken as the yardstick for rating a defect count.

Blackish beans: Pulper-nipped beans which have partly oxidized.

Bleached beans: Colourless beans, often caused by drying too rapidly or over-drying. Also known as soapy and faded beans, usually associated with mechanical drying.

Blotchy beans: The result of uneven drying.

Broca-damaged beans: Beans partially eaten away by an insect (Stephanoderes hampei) which bores galleries through the bean.

Brown beans: Brown in colour. May be caused by faulty fermentation, improper washing or over drying - see also 'foxy'.

Coated beans: Beans to which the silverskin adheres (11.05.06). Caused by drought, over-bearing or harvesting of unripe cherries (see also 11.06.03 'softs' and 11.07.04 'common' and 'harsh').

Crushed beans: Pulper-damaged beans, which often split and fade. Also caused by manual pounding of dry cherry to separate beans from husk (pilonnage in French).

Discoloured beans: Often pulper-damaged. Other causes are contact with earth, metal and foul water as well as damage after drying and beans left over in fermenting tanks (see also 'stinkers').

Drought-affected beans: Either coated or misshapen, pale and light in weight.

Dull, unnatural coloured beans: Due to faulty drying, often associated with metal contamination.

Ears: Part of a broken elephant bean.

Earthy beans: Smell of earth, caused by collecting beans fallen on bare ground.

Elephant beans: A generic aberration resulting in two beans being joined together - usually deformed and likely to break up during processing/roasting (see also 'ears', above).

Faded beans: Beans from old crop or dried too rapidly.

Flaky beans: Usually very thin, light and ragged (see also 'drought-affected', 'lights' and 'ragged').

Floats or floaters/lights: Under-developed, hollow beans - the fruit will float in water and is 'floated off' during wet processing. In washed coffee a sign of inadequate grading during wet processing.

Foxy beans: Rust or reddish coloured, a result either of harvesting overripe, sometimes yellow, cherries, delays in pulping, improper fermentation or faulty washing.

Green, water-damaged: Self-explanatory - usually brought about by dry parchment or hulled coffee becoming wet.

Hail-damaged beans: Show blackish circular marks on the oval side of the bean.

Light bean: Bean the specific weight of which is below normal - caused by drought or die-back.

Mottled beans: Are blotched, spotty or stained. Usually due to uneven drying.

Musty (mouldy) beans: Partial or wholly discoloured, whitish fur-like colour and texture (see also 11.07.03 'musty'). Show mould growth visible by the naked eye or evidence of mould attack.

Overripe: Brownish-yellow appearance; also known as foxy.

Peaberry: A single oblong or ovaloid roundish bean - a result of only one bean developing in a cherry instead of the usual two.

Pulper-nipped: Bean damaged by incorrect setting of the pulping knives - can become discoloured through oxidation during fermentation and may produce off-flavours.

Quakers: Blighted and undeveloped beans - show up as roast defects.

Ragged: This description often refers to drought-affected beans - harvesting a mixture of mature and immature cherries results in beans having a ragged appearance.

Stinkers: Beans which are over-fermented owing to improper cleaning of pulpers, fermenting tanks and washing channels.

Three-cornered beans: Semi-peaberry in character.

Withered: Light and shrivelled beans caused by drought or poor husbandry.

NB: The exporters/traders/roasters' technical vocabulary contains many more terms such as sticks, stones, pods (cherry), parchment, under-dried, under-fermented, etc. These are, however, all self-explanatory.