Depending on the variety, it will take approximately 3 to 4 years for the newly planted coffee trees to bear fruit. The fruit, called the coffee cherry, turns a bright, deep red when it is ripe and ready to be harvested.
The first useful harvest possible around five years after planting. After the emergence of the flower, it takes about 9 months for the green cherries to reach their deepest red color. This is time that they should be harvested.
In most countries, the coffee crop is picked by hand. Countries where the landscape is relatively flat and the coffee fields are immense, the process has been mechanised. Whether picked by hand or by machine, all coffee is harvested in one of two ways:
Strip picking
All coffee fruit is removed from the branch at one time, regardless of maturation state. This can either be done by machine or by hand.
In the first method, pickers generally place a canvas on the ground. They then grab the branch next to the trunk with their hands and pull outward, knocking all of the fruit onto the ground. After doing this with all branches and trees for the length of the canvas, the pickers then collect the coffee in bags. This process can be facilitated through the use of mechanical strippers.
This process doesn't discriminate between ripe or under ripe cherries, producing an overall lower quality batch.
Selective picking
Only the ripe cherries are harvested and they are picked individually by hand. Pickers rotate among the trees every 8 to 10 days, choosing only the cherries which are at the peak of ripeness.
It is used primarily to harvest the specialty arabica beans due to the intensive labor and cost...