Coffee Harvesting

The phase following growing is called harvesting, i.e. when the ripen coffee beans are selected by pickers or special mechanisms. As it has been mentioned before, the coffee tree needs approximately 9 months for its fruit to mellow. However the process of reaping carries a certain character - the coffee berries mature unevenly throughout the cluster, thus the pickers have to be constantly engaged in the process of harvesting. They gather the first batch of the yield, than comes the time for the second lot, and so and so forth (Except Brazil where all coffee beans ripen simultaneously and are picked in one step).

3 ways of selecting coffee berries

There are 3 types of coffee selecting or picking. The first one is the picking or the selective picking method. This way of collecting coffee is considered to be the most effective one as it allows a careful harvesting - only the fully ripen and the best fruit are selected by this way so that green beans can be selected later on.

Stripping is another picking technique that is widely used namely in Brazil as the coffee berries grow there evenly and don’t need a thorough and repeated selecting as they do in other coffee growing countries. The method consists in picking the whole cluster when it is ripen for the most part, instead of waiting for each bean. Thus, the coffee harvesting here is much easier and usually finishes much more rapidly which allows Brazilian farmers be a little ahead their competitors.

And, finally, the mechanical coffee harvesting is being considered as a very successful method. It functions very carefully and faster than the previous picking methods, is a modern way of selecting coffee and needs less people for controlling the process.

However, as it has been said before the selective picking is still considered the best as each berry is given individual attention at a lesser damage.

Interested what happens next with the coffee beans after they are gathered from trees? Our next article will help you solve this puzzle.