During the dry season, coffee cherries are harvested from the coffee trees. The ripest cherries—typically a deep, vibrant red—produce the highest quality coffee. Each cherry contains two coffee beans, and it takes roughly 100 beans to create a double espresso, highlighting just how much work goes into every cup.
Harvest seasons generally run from September to March north of the equator, and from April to August south of the equator. During this time, workers move through the plantations collecting ripe cherries. Coffee is commonly harvested using either selective picking or stripping methods.
Selective picking involves hand-picking only the ripest cherries, often requiring workers to return to the same tree several times throughout the season. While labour-intensive, this method produces the highest quality results. Stripping, by contrast, involves removing all cherries from a branch at once, with unripe cherries sorted out afterwards. This approach is commonly used in countries such as Brazil, where cherries tend to ripen more uniformly and production volumes are much larger. In some regions, mechanical harvesters are also used, shaking the trees to release the cherries.
On average, every 100kg of harvested coffee cherries yields around 15kg of finished coffee beans.