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Coffee Harvesting

At harvest time, coffee trees are laden with bright red coffee cherries. Ripe coffee cherries are cranberry. And an unroasted coffee bean is simply the pit of the coffee cherry.

The skin of the coffee cherry is very thick, with

a slightly bitter flavor. The fruit beneath the skin, however, is intensely sweet. The texture of this layer of fruit is similar to a grape. Beneath the fruit is the parchment, covered with a thin, slippery, honey-like layer called "mucilage".

The parchment of the coffee cherry serves as a protective pocket for the seed, much like the small pockets that protect the seeds of an apple. Removing the parchment, two translucent bluish green coffee beans are revealed, coated with a very thin layer called the "silverskin". While most coffee cherries contain two beans, 5% ~ 10% of the time, only one bean is produced in the cherry. This is called a "peaberry."

Coffee plants need special conditions if they are to thrive and give a satisfactory crop. These are:

• Favourable climate: areas with hot-wet or hot-temperate climate, between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn, with frequent rains and temperatures varying from 15 to 25 Degrees C;
• Geographic factor: Soil deep, hard, permeable, well-irrigated, with well-drained subsoil. The best lands are the hilly ones, those cut into a mountainside, of volcanic nature with disintegrating rocks or from just-tilled woods. The perfect altitude is between 600 and 1200 m, though some varieties thrive at 2000-2200 m, and others at under 400 m or even on level land;
• Careful culture, aimed at protecting the plants at every stage of growth, thus:
• Selection of the seeds from the healthier, more luxuriant and long-lived plants
• Sowing, beginning in sheltered and shaded nurseries from which -after about six months- the seedlings so obtained are moved to plantations, with all the earth surrounding the roots, in the rain season.

Depending on the growing areas (tropical or sub-tropical) coffee plants are alternated with other plants to shield them from wind and excessive sunlight. Treated and protected in this way, the plants will start to yield fruit only when three or four years old.

Hand-picking: the most selective                                            The nature method

method of harvesting (Colombia)

Coffee Treatment

Harvesting is made in different months of the year (depending on the geographic position of the producing countries), and it follows subsequent stages in accordance with maturing of the berries. Harvesting time depends on the geographic situation, and the climate and altitude conditions, and it can vary greatly therefore according to the various producing countries.

Ripe fruits can be plucked by hand, or picked with small rakes, or else brought down to earth with poles: the two first systems are used where low-cost labour is available, and they are more selective; the pole system is quicker, but less careful; and it calls for further operations of berry-cleaning. Where the terrain allows it, harvesting can today be effected with special automatic machines.

Only when the plant is five years old can it be counted upon to give a regular yield. This is between 400 grams and two kilos of "arabica" beans for each plant, and 600 grams and two kilos of "robusta" beans: one might say that for 500 grams of beans one will need 2.5 kilos of berries.

Since coffee is a very delicate product, the beans must be extracted within a few days after the harvesting. This is to prevent the pulp and surrounding films from fermenting. Seed extraction can be carried out in two ways:

• the "DRY" process, producing so-called "Natural" coffees; this is adopted mostly in Brazil and Western Africa. Desiccation takes place via sun exposure on lands reserved for that purpose, and the berries are continuously stirred to expose them evenly to the sun’s rays for a period of 15 ~ 20 days. Alternatively, after two or three days, coffee can be put in drying rooms, where it is dried by the heat of a burner at 45-60 degrees C.
• the "WET" process, which is more demanding and difficult (and expensive). From this process are obtained the so-called "Washed" or "Mild" coffees. This method is adopted in Central America, Mexico, Colombia, Kenya and Tanzania. The processing stages are: berry cleaning, maceration, removal of pulp, fermentation, desiccation, and peeling; and final operations designed to remove any residual impurities, and to give glossiness to the beans.

Coffee Roasting 

The way of roasting coffee is always be our focus on the coffee-making process. Our roast is more than a color: it is the cumulative, positive, and dramatic result of roasting each coffee in a unique way, helping each one reach its maximum flavor. The color can be duplicated -- but the taste cannot.

The coffee bean begins its life as the prize inside  a bright red coffee cherry. It takes about five years before a coffee tree produces a harvestable crop of cherries, and each tree only produces the equivalent of a pound of roasted beans per year. To prepare the pebble-like green coffee beans for roasting, growers process them using either the natural or the washed method.

v     For the natural method, ripe coffee cherries are allowed to dry on the tree or on the ground before the beans are removed by hulling.

v     For the washed method, the beans are immediately separated from the cherries, submerged in a vat of water, and then dried on large patios or with modern equipment.

Green coffee beans are heated in a large rotating drum, then their transformation begins:

Ø      After about 5 to 7 minutes of intense heat, much of their moisture evaporates. The beans turn a yellow color and smell a little like popcorn.

Ø      After about 8 minutes in the roaster, the "first pop" occurs. The beans double in size, crackling as they expand. They are now light brown. Very sour one-dimensional flavor notes are dominant, while more complex coffee flavors haven't yet developed.

Ø      After 10-11 minutes in the roaster, the beans reach an even brown colour, and oil starts to appear on the surface of the bean. At this roasting time (different for each coffee, but usually somewhere between 11 ~ 15 minutes), the full flavor potential begins to develop in the beans, bringing all of their attributes into balance. The "second pop" signals that the coffee is almost ready. The moment that the coffee is released into the cooling tray is a memorable one. The smell of freshly roasted coffee fills the air, along with the sound of applause created by the final clapping of the "second pop."