What is coffee harvesting?
Coffee cherries don’t ripen all at once. On a single branch of the coffee tree, you’ll often see green, ripe, and overripe cherries side by side. This makes harvesting a selective, labour-intensive task. The harvesting process involves choosing when and how cherries are picked and decisions vary depending on the region, altitude, climate, and the producer’s goals.
Coffee Harvesting methods
There are different ways coffee can be harvested. The choice of method affects quality and cost.
Selective hand-picking
In this method, only ripe cherries are picked by hand. This usually involves multiple passes through the same field over several weeks, allowing pickers to harvest cherries at their peak.
- High labour cost, but results in consistent, high-quality lots
- Most common method in specialty coffee-producing countries
Strip-picking
All cherries are stripped from the branch at once, either by hand or mechanically. This includes unripe and overripe cherries, which then require sorting later in the process.
- Faster and cheaper, but typically lower quality
- More common in commercial-scale production or regions with flat terrain suitable for machinery
Mechanical harvesting
Machines shake the coffee trees to remove the cherries. While increasingly efficient, especially on large farms in Brazil and parts of Central America, this method tends to be less selective.
- Suitable for flat, well-planned farms
- Requires post-harvest sorting to separate ripe cherries from underripe and overripe ones
Read more about different harvesting methods in Brazil in our article Coffee Picking in Brazil: Balancing Quality, Cost, and Practicality.
Why harvesting matters
The quality of a coffee starts at the point of harvest. Picking cherries too early can result in astringency and grassy flavours, while overripe cherries may ferment and create off-notes. Precision in harvesting means more uniformity, better processing results, and higher cup scores. Harvesting also affects yield, labour dynamics, and the broader sustainability of coffee production. A well-managed harvest supports both better flavour and better outcomes for producers and workers.
Coffee Harvesting in the Specialty vs Commercial Coffee
In specialty coffee, cherries are hand-picked based on ripeness, often requiring multiple passes through the same trees to ensure only the best fruit is collected. Careful sorting and separation help maintain quality, and harvest is closely coordinated with processing teams to preserve freshness and highlight flavour potential. In many producing regions, particularly in parts of Africa, the reality sits somewhere in between. Farmers may aim to pick selectively to avoid losses from unripe cherries, especially in a typical year. However, when cherry prices are high or competition is strong, selectivity often decreases. In those cases, the responsibility for quality largely shifts to the washing station or the buyer, who must decide how much additional sorting or selection to invest in before processing.
In commercial coffee, cherries are typically harvested in bulk with little attention to ripeness. Sorting is minimal and often left to the milling stage. The focus is on maximising volume and reducing cost per kilo, rather than optimising flavour or quality.
Where Nordic Approach fits in
We work with producers and exporters who put great effort into the harvesting stage. That often means collaborating on training programs, paying premiums for selective picking, and adjusting harvest timing based on microclimate and maturation patterns. We believe that investing in better harvesting practices pays off across the entire supply chain, with improved cup quality, traceability, and long-term sustainability for producers.
Learn more about coffee harvesting and general processing and grading here.
