After years of care comes the moment that gives meaning to all the work: the harvest. At Culpan, picking the coffee is an act of precision and patience, because the ripeness at which the cherry is gathered directly shapes the quality of the cup.
At Culpan the coffee is picked entirely by hand, bean by bean. Our harvesting crew works through the plantation, selecting each cherry by hand, one at a time, in work that no machine can match for care.
Manual picking makes it possible to choose only the cherry that is ready, leaving on the branch the ones that still need to ripen. It is a slower and more demanding method, but it is the only one that guarantees the strict selection a quality high-altitude coffee deserves.
To make sure every bean is gathered at just the right point, at Culpan we hold quality workshops with our workers. In them we remind everyone of the importance of harvesting the coffee cherry at its perfect ripe stage: not green, not overripe, but at the exact moment it has concentrated all of its sweetness.
A cherry picked too early brings greenness and astringency to the cup; one picked too late loses freshness. That is why training the picker is as important as the work in the field: the quality of the coffee is decided, quite literally, in every hand that picks.
Because the cherries of a single plant do not all ripen at the same time, going through the plantation just once is not enough. At Culpan we rotate through the plantation several times over the season, returning to each plant as many times as needed.
On each pass we gather only what is ripe and leave the rest for the next one. This system of multiple passes takes more work, but it ensures that only cherries at their perfect ripe stage reach the mill. It is Culpan's patience applied to the final step in the field.
A good harvest is the start of a great coffee. Get in touch to learn more about Culpan coffee.
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