Into the farm in the morning, while the dew is still on. Today's round is the trees we walked last week too. We knock on the same tree's door again and again. A coffee harvest is never finished in one pass. This article is about that day, written from the feel of the picker's hands. The research on why we pick selectively and why Brix is not sweetness is gathered in the overview of harvest and selective picking. I will not repeat it here.
A veteran picker knows without looking. Hook a finger and twist lightly. If it comes away cleanly, it is ripe. If it resists, it is early. So put it back. Not look at the colour and then hook a finger; hook a finger and then look at the colour. The order may seem backwards, but in the shade or after rain the colour cannot be trusted. The hand knows first.
On one branch, green and yellow and red and deep red live together. Today we pick only the deep red. The rest waits for the next round. Taking everything at once would be quicker, but then unripe fruit gets in. I still remember the day a lot with a little unripe fruit mixed in came out muddy.
A picker's basket reflects that person's eye. If there is a lot of yellow in the basket, they are in a hurry today. If it is all red, slow is fine; let them carry on. The quality of a harvest is decided in this basket, before variety or altitude. So I walk the rounds looking at baskets, not trees.
The picked cherries have their sugar (Brix) measured the same day. Not to know whether they will make a sweet bean, but so that how ripe today's basket was can be recalled after time has passed. Then they go into water. What floats is skimmed off. Unripe, insect-damaged, shrivelled. What the fingers missed, the water picks up. We do it in two stages not because we distrust hands, but because we know hands cannot take everything.
Finally, the notebook. Harvest date, which round of picking, Brix, share that floated, anything noticed. Unless it is written down it cannot be handed to next year's self. What we keep is in What to record for each lot at harvest.
Quality is decided before picking. So we go into the farm again and again, and pick selectively.
At the end of the day, I think about the fruit left behind. How many days until that yellow turns red? What will the weather do? Harvest is not a single job but returning to the same tree at the pace it ripens. It takes labour. But whatever you skimp on here always shows later.
For reading ripeness beyond colour see Judging ripeness; for the two stages that keep unripe out, How to reduce unripe beans; for why ripeness splits on the same tree, Why fruit of different timing shares one tree; for the person who picks, What decides quality is the person who picks. For the research behind it, the overview of harvest and selective picking.
Follow this record. New measurements, stories and lot releases from LAOS — delivered to your inbox first.
New records and lot releases, delivered to your inbox first.
New lots, drying updates and field notes — every Friday, in one short letter.