Each year coffee beans are harvested in the dry season when the red coffee cherries are bright, glossy, and firm.

The Way Coffee Beans are Harvested

Ripe red coffee cherries are harvested either by hand, stripped from the trees with both unripe and overripe beans, or all the coffee beans are gathered using a harvesting machine. These procedures are called selective picking, stripping, and mechanical harvesting. To maximize the amount of ripe coffee harvested, it is necessary to selectively pick the ripe coffee beans from the tree by hand and leave behind unripe, green beans to be harvested at a later time.

There are some books that will give you more info. on coffee beans harvesting and equipment. I will recommend some in a blog at a later date. The book that comes to mind is the "Coffee Harvest" by Michael Clark, but I'm not sure that is the correct name I'll have to check and get back to you.

Brazil's Procedures to Harvest Coffee Beans

Harvesting the same coffee tree several times is less cost effective than separating and discarding the unripe or overripe cherries. Therefore, Brazil typically harvests using the stripping method when 75% of the coffee crop is perfectly ripe. Stripping is cost effective in Brazil due to the uniform maturation of Brazilian coffees. When harvested by stripping, the coffee beans are removed from the tree and fall to the ground where they are caught by sheets. The coffee beans are seperated from unwanted debris by tossing the coffee beans in the air allowing the wind to carry away sticks and leaves. The coffee is then put in 60 L baskets, which is the tool of measurement used by coffee producers to determine wages. Some coffee estates, such as Fazenda Monte Alegre in Sul de Minas Brazil, have a computerized system to determine wages for harvesting coffee beans. This system accounts for the amount of coffee collected from each person, the difficulty of the coffee harvesting conditions, and the production of the region being harvested.

The Weight of Coffee Beans

About 12-20 kg of export ready coffee beans will be produced from every 100 kg of coffee cherries harvested.

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Josh Schrock - coffee aficianado

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