Each year coffee is normally harvested during the dry season only, when the coffee cherries are very bright red, glossy and firm enough to be harvested. Ripe cherries could be either picked by hand, stripped from the tree with both unripe and overripe coffee beans or even all the beans could be collected using a harvesting machine. These processes are known as careful picking, stripping and mechanical harvesting, respectively.



To maximize the amount of coffee harvesting it is extremely necessary to selectively pick the ripe beans form the tree by hand and leave the unripe beans behind to be harvested at a later time. In Brazil, harvesting the coffee beans from the same tree several times is more expensive than separating and discarding the unripe or overripe cherries. Therefore, Brazil naturally harvests coffee using the stripping method when 75% of the crop is completely ripe. Stripping method is feasible and cost effective in Brazil due to the uniform maturation of Brazilian gourmet coffee.

In stripping the coffee beans are pulled from the tree and fall to the ground where they are further caught by sheets. These coffee beans are removed from the tree by tossing the coffee in air allowing the wind to take away sticks and leaves. Then the coffee is put in 60 L a green basket that is the tool measurement used by coffee producers to determine wages. Some estates in Brazil have computerized system to determine wages that keeps the account for the amount of coffee collected by each person. About 12-20 kg of export ready coffee would be created from every 100 kg of coffee cherries harvested.