Harvesting Coffee

Harvesting of the coffee cherries is accomplished by one of two methods; hand picking or mechanical harvesting. Hand picking is the preferred method of harvesting because it ensures that only the ripe cherries are picked and that damaged, unripe or otherwise unsuitable cherries do not make it to the processing mill. For the most part all the best coffees are harvested this way.

Mechanical harvesting makes no distinction between the ripe and unripe or otherwise unsuitable cherry. While there are sorting methods later in the processing aimed at removing the unripe fruit from the fermentation tanks hand picking is still used in most all the coffee growing regions. Brazil is the largest producer of coffee growing about 43% of the entire world supply and the majority of this coffee is mechanically harvested.

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