Depending on the county where the coffee is
being grown, the coffee beans could be harvested as little or much in
year depends on the county's plant and the climate. Coffee plant
flowers and fruit are dependent on the cycle of rainy seasons. Growing
coffee beans closer to equator gives you more and more opportunities to
harvest.
Each year coffee is normally harvested during the dry season only, when
the coffee cherries are very bright red, glossy and firm enough to be
harvested. Ripe cherries could be either picked by hand, stripped from
the tree with both unripe and overripe coffee beans or even all the
beans could be collected using a harvesting machine. These processes
are known as careful picking, stripping and mechanical harvesting,
respectively.
To maximize the amount of coffee harvesting it is extremely necessary
to selectively pick the ripe beans form the tree by hand and leave the
unripe beans behind to be harvested at a later time. In Brazil,
harvesting the coffee beans from the same tree several times is more
expensive than separating and discarding the unripe or overripe
cherries. Therefore, Brazil naturally harvests coffee using the
stripping method when 75% of the crop is completely ripe. Stripping
method is feasible and cost effective in Brazil due to the uniform
maturation of Brazilian gourmet coffee.
In stripping the coffee beans are pulled from the tree and fall to the
ground where they are further caught by sheets. These coffee beans are
removed from the tree by tossing the coffee in air allowing the wind to
take away sticks and leaves. Then the coffee is put in 60 L a green
basket that is the tool measurement used by coffee producers to
determine wages. Some estates in Brazil have computerized system to
determine wages that keeps the account for the amount of coffee
collected by each person. About 12-20 kg of export ready coffee would
be created from every 100 kg of coffee cherries harvested.
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