Coffee training knowledge chapter on picking time of high-quality coffee beans

Coffee trees generally bloom in 3 to 4 years, about 2 to 3 months each year, similar in appearance and smell to jasmine flowers, closely clustered on branches when flowering, flowering 3 to 5 days. After flowering, they bear small green fruit, a few months later mature into red can be picked ripe fruit.

Ripe fruit skin is red, due to the shape and color similar to cherries, many places called ripe coffee fruit coffee cherry. Beneath the bright red exocarp are the pericarp, pulp, and a sweet, sticky yellow substance that encases the beans.

Normally, each fruit has two coffee beans, flat faces facing each other. Other coffee trees sometimes produce smaller fruits containing only one coffee bean, which has different names-round bean, single bean or paula-and has no flat sides and is almost round. Because it is very small in quantity and must be specially selected and collected together, the price is much higher than ordinary coffee beans. Many people think that round beans taste particularly good, because their round bean shape can tightly wrap the original flavor of coffee in the beans, the taste is extremely strong, is regarded as the best coffee beans.

Most Arabica beans mature between June and August, and Robasta beans between September and October. Therefore, although in some countries where the dry and wet seasons are not obvious, such as Colombia and Kenya, there are two flowering times a year, that is, two harvests, but strictly speaking, there is only one harvest a year.

The harvest period of coffee varies from region to region. Areas north of the equator (such as Ethiopia and Central America) generally harvest once in September to November. South of the equator, in areas such as Brazil and Zimbabwe, the main harvest occurs in April or May, although it can last until August. Equatorial countries, such as Uganda and Colombia, harvest year-round, especially plantations that exploit a variety of altitudes. As a result, coffee beans may be newly harvested most of the year.

Coffee fruits are harvested immediately when ripe, and because fruits of different maturity periods appear on the same tree, harvesting is not easy. Generally speaking, it takes 4 - 5 months from initial harvest to complete harvest. If ripe and immature fruits are harvested at the same time, the quality of coffee will be reduced. Therefore, good quality coffee is hand-picked one by one to maintain the perfect coffee taste.

In one year, a typical Arabica coffee tree harvests less than 5 kilograms of fruit, making about 1 kilogram of coffee beans.