There are two types of coffee processing: natural and washed.

Once harvested, coffee is processed.
During the coffee processing process, the beans are removed from the coffee cherries.
It's similar to removing the seeds from cherries.
What we call coffee beans are actually the seeds of a plant.
And coffee cherries are red or purple, just like cherries.
They are just coffee cherries.

There are two processing methods: natural and washed.
In natural processing, the coffee cherries are dried until the pulp is dry, and then the pulp is removed by machine to extract the seeds.
In washed processing, on the other hand, water is added to the cherries to remove any floating immature beans, and the pulp is then removed using a pulper to remove the seeds.
The seeds are then washed and dried in the sun or by machine.

Though the seeds are ultimately dried,
natural processing differs in that the cherries are dried before the seeds are removed, while washed processing dries after the seeds are removed.

Because natural processing involves drying the whole fruit, the sugars and aromas of the pulp are more likely to transfer to the beans.
In contrast, washed coffee has the pulp removed before being dried, which allows the original flavor of the beans to come through more clearly.

This means that even the same beans can taste different depending on the processing method.