Hi, I’m Prunella from “Le Piantagioni del Caffè” and I will tell you about raw coffee harvesting techniques in the countries of origin.

In the countries of origin, coffee harvesting can be done mechanically or manually.
Usually, the mechanical technique is done with the help of machines in countries where the soil is very flat and the coffee quality is average, that is commercial coffee.
For Specialty coffee instead, the harvesting techniques are manual and they are one of two types: selective picking or manual stripping.
The former is the best technique because it allows harvesting only the cherries, the ripe drupes, from the plants. The latter, manual stripping, is slightly faster but sometimes it involves harvesting some unripe cherries.
Both types of manual harvesting include two or three steps, sometimes four, of harvesting on the same plant to respect the cherries’ ripening time.
The pros of manual harvesting are that coffee in the cup has a much cleaner and sweeter taste, and it has a rounder body.
Also, it doesn’t have those flaws due to unripe cherries: flaws that could be described as sensations of astringency and sourness.