What is parchment coffee? From cherry to parchment to green

The short answer

A ripe coffee cherry holds two seeds (sometimes one, called a peaberry). Each seed is wrapped in a thin silver skin and a firmer, papery layer: the parchment. When the fruit is removed and the seeds are dried with that layer still on, the result is parchment coffee. When the parchment is removed at a dry mill, the result is green coffee, which Colombia's coffee federation (FNC) notes is also called "café oro" or "almendra" in some countries and is the most common form in which coffee is exported.

Kenya's Coffee Act, 2026 uses the same chain in law: "coffee" includes the fruit and the seed as buni (coffee dried in the fruit), parchment coffee, clean coffee, roasted beans or ground coffee. "Clean coffee" is the seed separated from the fruit tissues with the silver skin reduced as far as possible, which the rest of the world calls green coffee.

From cherry to parchment: washed coffee

Parchment is the product of wet (washed) processing. The steps are:

1. Pick ripe cherries and sort out unripe, overripe and damaged fruit.
2. Pulp the cherries to remove the skin and most of the fruit.
3. Remove the sticky layer left on the parchment, usually by fermentation and washing.
4. Dry the parchment on clean mats, tables or patios, turning it often and protecting it from rain and night humidity.
5. Stop when the water content is no higher than 12%, the limit the International Coffee Organization (ICO) sets for parchment in its code of practice against mould.

In Kenya, the ICO country profile says about 90% of coffee is wet processed at washing stations owned by cooperative societies and estates. The parchment is graded at the station into Parchment 1, 2, 3 and lights before it goes to a dry mill, and its moisture is checked before milling.

Natural coffee: dried in the cherry

In dry (natural) processing the whole cherry is dried, so there is no separate parchment stage to sell. The ICO code sets the same 12% maximum water content for dried cherries. Kenya calls this product buni (less than 10% of Kenyan coffee, according to the ICO profile). Uganda's coffee department publishes separate prices for kiboko (dried cherry), FAQ (hulled kiboko), arabica parchment and clean coffee, which shows how many forms are traded at origin. Coffee Parchment lists the same forms: cherry, kiboko, wet parchment, dry parchment, green and roasted coffee.

From parchment to green: the dry mill

At the dry mill, hulling removes the parchment. The beans are then cleaned and sorted by size (on screens), density and colour, graded and bagged. Kenya's law defines coffee milling as "mechanical hulling or de-husking of coffee", including grading of clean coffee, and Kenyan parchment is milled into seven primary grades of clean coffee (E, AA, AB, PB, C, TT and T) plus two buni grades. Our guide to green coffee grades explains what those letters mean.

How much green coffee is in parchment?

Colombia measures this with the factor de rendimiento (yield factor): the kilograms of dry parchment needed to produce one 70 kg bag of Excelso green coffee. The FNC's reference factor is 94, meaning 94 kg of dry parchment give 70 kg of Excelso, plus lower grades (pasilla) and husk. A lower factor means better quality and a better price for the farmer. That is roughly 74% of the parchment weight ending up as export-grade green coffee at the reference factor; real lots vary with how well the coffee was grown, picked and dried.

This is also why parchment and green coffee are priced differently. The FNC publishes its daily reference price per carga of 125 kg of dry parchment, worked out from the New York (ICE) arabica price, the exchange rate and the Colombian differential. Our guide on how coffee prices work covers those terms.

Why moisture matters

Moisture is the single most important number on a parchment lot. The ICO code says the risk of ochratoxin A (a mould toxin) rises strongly above 12.5% moisture, that this level should not be exceeded anywhere in the chain, and that coffee above it should be dried again before shipping. Over-dry or re-wetted parchment also loses quality. Ask for a moisture reading on every parchment or green lot, and state the maximum in your contract.

Who buys and sells parchment?

• Farmers sell parchment to cooperatives, mills and exporters. In Colombia the FNC guarantees to buy dry parchment through the cooperatives' buying points.
• In Kenya, parchment is moved from the washing station to a licensed commercial miller under a parchment movement permit from the county of origin, and a grower may send a sample of up to 500 g of parchment to an independent laboratory before milling (Coffee Act, 2026).
• Exporters mill parchment into green coffee, because green coffee is what most international buyers import.

If you buy parchment, you take on the milling and the out-turn risk (how much export-grade green you get). If you buy green, you pay for coffee that has already been milled, graded and checked.

Trading parchment on Coffee Parchment

Sellers can list cherry, kiboko, wet or dry parchment, green or roasted coffee and state moisture, grade, process and harvest. Buyers can filter by form and origin, for example Colombian lots, Kenyan lots or Ugandan lots, and make an offer. Always agree a moisture limit and ask for a sample before you pay.