These photos are a few weeks old now, but I thought I should still share them. There from Fazenda Floresta in Bahia and its showing me how much work they need to do to pick.

Luca sent this through as an email

“The “scale” of ripeness goes from the green to the black …as in that picture(above).

It goes from the green to the ‘’yellowish green’’ (which will not be as astringent as the green), then to orange, then light red, vivid red…. into the purple…. After that it will dehydrate into, dry, parched fruit … and finally black.

Normally, commodity like processed coffee will wait for the point in which the ‘’ average ‘’ is more in the middle range, and take all the fruits.

Selective, quality oriented picking will pass and pick the ripe one a few times over a period time – in our case, in a not so cold year, pass again every 8 to 10 days. In a year of lower temperatures, every 15 days or so. But even among the ‘’ripe’’ ones, you have the red and the purple… Which will have more time to concentrate the sugar while still in the tree – ‘’alive’’ – as opposed to the ripe ones in the drying patio. The metabolism still on but starts to perish… the older people, or the popular knowledge if you wish, recognize the purple the perfect point… I am not sure. (see photo below)”

(The ones on the right are good and ready)

So good picking is just as important as good growing and roasting.