What is triage in green coffee processing?

Triage is the sorting stage at which defective green coffee beans - those unfit for consumption due to mould, insect damage, or other contamination - are removed from a lot. The term is borrowed from medical triage: assessing and prioritising by severity.

In practice, triage happens during the hand-sorting or optical sorting stage at the dry mill. Primary defects (full black, full sour, dried cherry, fungal damage) are the priority for removal. Secondary defects - partial damage, floaters, minor discolouration - are also targeted depending on the preparation specification for the lot.

Triage quality directly determines the defect count of the final lot and contributes to the cup score of the finished coffee. Well-executed triage is a sign of careful post-harvest management and shows up in the preparation grade of the exported coffee. When you're comparing two lots with the same origin and processing but different prices, triage quality is often what you're actually paying for.