The harvest of coffee beans

After 3 or 4 years of growth, the coffee tree matures and begins to bear fruit, and one fruit will be arranged in clusters or clusters along the branches.

Of course, the coffee beans we see are the seeds of coffee trees. The outside of the seed is a layer of peel, which can be picked as soon as it turns red. Under the red skin (exocarp) there is a layer of pulp (mesocarp), which is a small thin layer, and then a layer of parchment-like substance-endocarp. In all of these peels, there are usually two beans with opposite planes, and the beans have a thin film or skin on the outside.

This kind of berry, as we know it, is a bright red when ripe. Most Arabica coffee beans mature from June to August, while Robbins coffee beans mature from September to October. Therefore, although in some countries where the dry and wet seasons are not obvious, such as Colombia and Kenya, there are two flowering periods a year, that is, two harvests, strictly speaking, only once a year.

As far as picking itself is concerned, there are two ways. One is picking in pieces, that is, picking all the beans after a walk in the garden. The other is selective picking, that is, walking between trees several times at intervals of 8 to 10 days and picking only ripe red berries. Selective picking is more expensive and labor-intensive than picking in pieces, and it is generally only used for Arabica coffee beans, especially those that need to be washed.

The number of coffee beans picked depends on a variety of factors, the most obvious being the height of the trees and the layout of the farm or plantation. The average farm can pick an average of 50 kilograms and 100 kilograms a day. However, only 20% of these weights are real coffee beans, so each picker can only pick 10 to 20 kilograms of coffee beans on average. The coffee beans are packed in a bag with a standard weight of 45kg to 60kg. As a result, it takes three to six days for a worker to fill a bag.

It has been calculated that the cost of harvesting a plantation or farm is half of the total cost of the year. In Brazil, people have tried many times to reduce these costs by mechanical picking. The machine can shake branches across a coffee tree so that berries that become loose because they are fully ripe will fall into the funnel. Mechanical pickers only work in areas with better natural conditions, and they need to be adjusted in advance, because they can only be used where the trees can be planted in rows straight, and afterwards need to check the coffee beans picked by the machine. pick out the leaves and branches that have fallen in the funnel.