When growing coffee, a third of the labor costs go into its collection. It can be manual or mechanized. Manual is divided into stripping and picking. What is the difference between them, and how do quaker beans appear after roasting - in our new material.

When is the harvest time in different countries?

The distribution zone of coffee trees on the planet is not that wide. It includes only tropical regions, because any frost is fatal for trees. For Arabica, the temperature is considered to be from 15 to 24 degrees, for Robusta - from 24 to 30. Arabica grows at an altitude of 0.7-2.3 thousand meters, Robusta - 0.2-0.8 thousand meters.

In the northern hemisphere, the harvest is from September to March, in the southern hemisphere – from April to August. The longest season is in Uganda. It lasts… all year round. Farmers from different regions of Colombia also reap the fruits of their labor all year round.

Unripe coffee berries are easily recognized by their green color. Ripe ones are red or yellow (depending on the variety). Overripe ones are black, dark red and dark yellow. The tree can bear fruit for a maximum of 20 years.

Stripping and picking

Coffee harvesting varies from country to country due to conditions. Ethiopia has many wild plantings with tall trees. It is difficult to climb them, so the farmer and his relatives take only 15-20 kg of berries daily.

In Kenya, standard plantations with low (3-4 m) trees are common. Here, seasonal workers achieve impressive results – up to 200 kg per day. In Mexico, the daily norm varies from 30 to 100 kg.

Seasonal workers are attracted to countries with cheap labor and where coffee is grown on mountain slopes. In Australia, Hawaii (US state) and Brazil, entrepreneurs have to turn to special equipment. One combine harvester processes 3 hectares per day and can replace 150 pickers. It remains to survive several fruitful years - and the expensive special equipment will pay for itself.

Mechanized harvesting is always stripping (from the English to strip – to rip off, to tear off). The machine doesn’t care: it simultaneously knocks down unripe berries, ripe ones, and overripe ones. Fast, but not that effective. The statistics for Brazil are approximately as follows: 30% ripe berries, 15% green, 40% dried. There is a special name for fruits blackened by the heat – boya. And what about the remaining 15%? These are berries that have fallen to the ground. A team of workers picks them up before sunset.

Stripping is also applicable to manual picking. The worker holds a branch with one hand and runs the other hand, clenched into a fist, along it. In his palm, along with berries of varying degrees of ripeness, remain leaves, twigs, any natural debris brought by the wind, buds and flowers. Then, during mechanical sorting, ripe berries are separated, but some debris usually leaks through.

Picking (English to pick – to selectively pluck in this case) is fundamentally different from stripping. The worker slowly and painstakingly throws only ripe fruits into the basket. For high quality, customers have to pay dearly later.

Quakers

No, Quakers in the context of the article about coffee are certainly not fans of the game Quake. These are green (unripe) berries that were mistakenly included in the batch. They are difficult to notice during sorting. When roasted, they turn yellow, and no matter what roast you use: dark, medium or light. Often, berries grow like this due to a lack of sugars, starch and other nutrients in the soil. Roasters pick them out by hand and throw them away. If this is not done, the coffee will taste like wood, grass and popcorn.

How coffee arrives at your table

In order not to abandon the harvest halfway to your cup, we will tell you how the berries actually turn into coffee. After harvesting, farmers take them to processing plants. It can be dry (natural) and washed (wet).

In dry processing, the fruit is laid out in the sun "as is", that is, in the skin. The taste is rich, sweet, with a characteristic fermented flavor. The dry method is common in hot countries with rare rainfall, such as Ethiopia. Washed processing, on the contrary, removes sweetness and increases sourness. The skin is removed from the berries, then the gluten comes off the grain. The berries are soaked in tanks, and defective grains with low density naturally float to the top. The final stage is also drying. The richness after the wet method is less than after the natural one, but the taste is better balanced, and the grains are valued higher.

After visiting the processing station, the plantation owner sells the coffee beans to an exporter, who then sells them to an international trader. The beans are transported in jute bags weighing 60–70 kg (different countries have different standards). Roasters and importers buy from traders. And then you or a barista buys the coffee for your establishment.