Coffee: Harvesting Methods — Selective vs Strip Picking

Harvesting is the first post-farm quality decision in coffee production, and the choice of harvesting method has direct consequences for the proportion of ripe, unripe, and overripe cherries that enter processing — which in turn determines the ceiling of achievable cup quality. Unlike mechanized grain crops where harvest timing is relatively uniform across a field, coffee cherries on a single tree ripen at different rates, making selective harvesting both more labor-intensive and more quality-critical.

Harvesting Methods Comparison

Method	Passes/Season	Ripe Cherry %	Labor Cost (index)	Applicable Terrain	Typical Quality Outcome	Primary Regions
Selective hand-picking	3–4	85–95%	Very high (3–5× strip)	Steep hillsides, small farms	Specialty	Ethiopia, Kenya, Colombia, Central America
Strip picking (hand)	1	65–80%	Low	Any terrain	Commercial–Good	Brazil (some), Vietnam, Indonesia
Strip picking (combing/raking)	1	60–75%	Very low	Accessible terrain	Commercial	Brazil, Vietnam
Machine harvesting (straddler)	1	60–75%	Very low (capital-intensive)	Flat, row-planted farms	Commercial	Brazil (Cerrado, Sul de Minas)
Machine harvesting (derriçadeira)	1–2	65–80%	Low-medium	Moderate slopes	Commercial–Good	Brazil

Selective Hand-Picking

Selective picking — also called “pepeo” in some Latin American producing regions — is the standard for specialty coffee production. Pickers move through each tree’s canopy, touching and visually assessing each cherry, and remove only those that have reached full ripeness (visually red or yellow depending on the varietal). Unripe (green) and overripe (dark red to black) cherries are left for the next pass.

A full selective harvest season on a well-managed farm requires 3–4 passes per plot, with each pass separated by 7–14 days — the approximate time for another cohort of cherries to reach ripeness. This interval is climate-dependent: in warmer conditions or at lower altitudes where ripening is faster, passes may be needed every 5–10 days.

The quality argument for selective picking rests on two factors. First, unripe cherries contain higher concentrations of chlorogenic acids and starch that have not yet converted to sugars, producing harsh, astringent cup defects. Second, overripe cherries have begun internal fermentation, producing acetic acid and other off-compounds that survive processing and roasting. Even a 10–15% inclusion of defective cherries in a processed lot can lower the SCA cupping score by 2–5 points.

The economic argument against selective picking is straightforward: it is 3–5 times more expensive per kilogram of harvested cherry than strip picking, and on steep hillsides with dispersed tree spacing, skilled pickers achieve only 40–80 kg cherry per day — requiring many labor-days per hectare per season.

Strip Picking

Strip picking involves removing all cherries from a branch simultaneously in a single downward or pulling motion. It is the dominant method in Brazil and Vietnam — the world’s two largest coffee producers — where labor costs, flat or gentle terrain, and large farm scale make selective picking economically impractical.

The resulting harvest includes a mix of ripe, underripe, and overripe cherries. In well-managed operations, strip picking is timed to align with peak ripeness across the farm — often determined by visual assessment of the overall population of cherries — minimizing but not eliminating the unripe fraction. On high-performing Brazilian specialty farms, careful timing and sorting at the wet mill (using flotation and density tables to remove low-density, underripe, or defective cherries) can recover reasonable cup quality from strip-picked lots.

Raking and combing tools — devices like large-tined rakes or vibrating combs — are used in some regions to increase strip-picking productivity further, essentially mechanizing the stripping action while still requiring a human operator.

Machine Harvesting

Mechanical harvesting is economically viable only in Brazil’s major growing regions — specifically the flatter terrain of the Cerrado (Minas Gerais) and Sul de Minas — where row-planted estates with adequate tree spacing can accommodate large straddling harvesting machines. These self-propelled machines straddle coffee rows, use vibrating paddles or rods to shake the branches, and collect falling cherries via canvas catchment systems. Throughput can reach 400–600 sixty-kilogram-bag equivalents per hour with a skilled operator and well-maintained equipment.

Smaller handheld mechanical derriçadeiras (vibrating wands or pole shakers) extend some machine-harvest efficiency to smaller farms and moderate slopes, and are widespread in Brazil even on farms that cannot accommodate straddling harvesters. These tools achieve higher productivity than pure hand stripping while remaining applicable on terrain too uneven for full machines.

The quality outcomes of machine harvesting are comparable to hand strip picking when used at peak ripeness with good post-harvest sorting, but the method is intrinsically incompatible with the 3–4 selective pass approach that specialty-grade production requires.

Post-Harvest Sorting

Regardless of harvesting method, sorting at the wet mill is a critical quality recovery step. Freshly harvested cherries are floated in water immediately after delivery: ripe, dense cherries sink while underdeveloped (hollow) or overripe (fermented, gaseous) cherries float and are skimmed off. This flotation step can remove a significant proportion of defects even from strip-picked lots, partially compensating for the reduced selectivity of the harvesting method.

Density sorting tables and electronic optical sorters are used at the processed parchment stage in more mechanized facilities, providing a second opportunity to remove defective beans before export.