The world of Honey process

My very first Costa Rica coffee was honey processed.  Since then, for some reason, whenever people ask for Costa Rican, my recommendation stays with honey.  There was two reason: Honey process 1) often has high enough sweetness level to diminish acidity, 2) has clear and clean flavor works well even with coffee machine.  Although the name of “Honey Process” often misunderstands to come from general cup impression, “sweet like honey”, it relates to “sticky fluid substance”, called mucilage, covers the beans after pulping.  
In traditional Fully-washed process, mucilage are totally washed off after the skin and pulp is removed in mechanical washing process with rollers.  However, honey process allows the mills to determine degrees of mucilage removed, which also decide “the colors” in honey process as follows:

Black Honey: 0% of mucilage removed, dried with cover and left to ferment with short drying time.
Red Honey: about 25% of mucilage removed, dried without cover.
Yellow Honey: about a half, 50%, of mucilage removed, dried without cover.
Golden Honey: about 75% of mucilage removed, dried without cover.

There are also so called “White Honey” with 100% of mucilage removed, but this maybe similar to “natural” in other reasons. 

 Regarding the flavor, the most important point, Black Honey is characterized deep sweetness and full bodied, when Red sweet/syrupy, yellow light/floral, Golden citrus-like/crisp, and White balanced/clean.  It is said that the more mucilage left on beans, the deeper in sweetness and richness.  There are no scientific research submitted, maybe only I have never seen the one, so there are no proof to backup besides sensory experiences the cuppers have.  Also, the degree of mucilage left strongly depends on the mills/producers, of course.  Blessed with Specialty coffee movements, the growers and producers focus on the market segmentation, which might refer as “segregation”, and produce/heighten the values of their cultivation.  Colors in honey process might be the part of it.  There will be more chance for the coffee geeks to find honey process colors in Costa Rican COE, but still less chance to compare flavor difference between “colors” by mills, unless you are a green beans buyer or a professional coffee roaster.

Deep appreciation to COE to bring Black honey accessible.  
Otherwise, colors in honey process stays "covert" in coffee professionals in Costa Rica.