Traditional practice, from the agronomy literature:
Cacao: heap/pile fermentation 5-7 days in plantain- or banana-leaf-lined boxes (that's where flavor precursors form), then sun-drying on raised bamboo tables, raked through the day, often rolled under roofs at night to dodge dew.
Coffee has three classic routes: natural (dry the whole cherry on patios or raised "African beds" ~2-4 weeks, raked constantly), washed (depulp -> 12-48h wet fermentation to strip mucilage -> thin-layer sun drying), and honey (depulped, some mucilage left, sticky slow drying). Patios are cheap and common in Brazil; raised beds give better aeration and fewer defects - what specialty buyers pay up for.
Which is actually a quiet argument for the miner-heat plan: consistent low-RH airflow is the single hardest thing to achieve with pure sun drying in the humid tropics - and it's the difference between a specialty lot and a commodity one.
Traditional practice, from the agronomy literature:
Cacao: heap/pile fermentation 5-7 days in plantain- or banana-leaf-lined boxes (that's where flavor precursors form), then sun-drying on raised bamboo tables, raked through the day, often rolled under roofs at night to dodge dew.
Coffee has three classic routes: natural (dry the whole cherry on patios or raised "African beds" ~2-4 weeks, raked constantly), washed (depulp -> 12-48h wet fermentation to strip mucilage -> thin-layer sun drying), and honey (depulped, some mucilage left, sticky slow drying). Patios are cheap and common in Brazil; raised beds give better aeration and fewer defects - what specialty buyers pay up for.
Which is actually a quiet argument for the miner-heat plan: consistent low-RH airflow is the single hardest thing to achieve with pure sun drying in the humid tropics - and it's the difference between a specialty lot and a commodity one.