Does Harvest Rain Destroy Coffee Quality?

While rainfall is important for high coffee yields and coffee growth, it is a negative threat to ripe coffee berries, which are knocked to the ground, and those that fall to the ground stay too long and start to ferment.

On the other hand, the fruit left on the branch may split by absorbing too much water too quickly, which will cause the pulp of the ripe fruit to be forced to separate, which will lead to a loss of fruit weight, as well as loss of the pectin layer, which in turn reduces the quality and cupping score of the finished coffee. Just like coffee loses sugar.

When looking at the micro-batch coffee campaign to see that coffee berries are sorted by ripeness, the ideal batch has the most ripe fruit, less overripe and pink fruit, and no underripe fruit. If there is rain, we will pick the pink fruit because waiting until the fruit turns red is very risky.

While picking pink fruit will result in lower cupping scores and lower purchase prices, waiting until the fruit turns red before harvesting leaves farmers with a lose-lose result of lower yields and lower quality.

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Rain is not only a problem on the farm side. It can also be a challenge for the factories that deal with it. For coffee that has just been harvested and processed, a little more moisture caused by air humidity is not a big problem. Still, for coffee that has been processed to appropriate moisture content and is ready to be bagged and exported, it will have a serious impact. "You'll need to dry them again, which means a second treatment, which leads to a loss of quality," he said.

Even with freshly harvested and trellis-dried coffee, rainfall can negatively affect you, and you need to use wood to separate the batches to avoid mixing and then cover the green beans. But if the rain comes fast and fast, it can catch us off guard.

If the rain comes quickly and quickly, it will cause huge damage, and even if it is kept in a sealed bag specially designed to resist rain and moisture, especially when there are a large number of bags of green beans, it is difficult to cause a huge impact on the moisture. Close all bags tightly.

Rainfall This is the peak period of operation for the treatment plant, and it is also the most difficult period of time.

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Rainfall is especially bad for sun-dried or honey-processed coffee and even worse for smallholder producers with limited manpower, insufficient resources, and room for working capital.

Such rainfall will reduce the cupping score. In addition, many buyers will only buy single products with a score of 84 or more. If the high-quality products are knocked down due to the influence of the rain, the purchase price of commercial beans will be a huge difference for farmers' income.

Small farmers, in particular, are helpless and can only watch the quality of their coffee decline. Rafael said: "We have to call the factories and ask them to separate the wet batches and cover them with items. The almost ready fruit is then transferred to the greenhouse. Smaller farmers just need to pick up all the fruit."

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"The next year's harvest will be brought forward to August. "This phrase is heard several times in El Salvador, where the rains occur. Due to unexpected heavy rain, coffee flowers appear on the branches earlier, but coffee flowers are closely related to the development of fruits. Although there are differences due to varieties and production areas, usually Arabica coffee fruits will appear after flowering. Mature at nine months.

This will lead to a high probability of low-quality and low-yield coffee harvested that year. Some farmers with lower incomes will hope to receive payments earlier in the following year. After all, farmers have no cash and will hope to have an income before their livelihood becomes difficult.

However, an early harvest can affect supply and demand as El Salvador's coffee rivals compete with coffees that typically co-occur (e.g., Peru, Brazil, Kenya). Less demand and more supply will lead to lower prices, so the months of farmers tightening their belts may last longer.

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Often, early harvesting can also result in a lack of harvest workers, as this is seasonal work. However, as coffee leaf rust devastated coffee production and quality in 2012, there was a surplus of coffee harvesters, with local producers estimating that there were 25% more harvesters than needed.

But even that glimmer of hope masks a nasty reality: If the harvest starts early, it could end early. Workers who typically expect to be at work until February or even March may be out of work before December. The gap between the 2017 and 2018 harvests will be wider, which also means that the months for farmers to tighten their belts are likely to increase.

Real buyers don't see these problems, it won't be the rainy season when they get to the farm, and they won't know what problems a light rain will cause.

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One of the reasons some coffee producers may prefer to work with local buyers rather than specialty coffee buyers is that there is less risk. Buyers will still acquire these coffees.

There is no simple solution to the damage caused by rainfall during the harvest. The specialty coffee community must be mindful of the quality of the coffee without losing sight of the livelihoods of producers and farmworkers. We can ask ourselves, what else can we do at the back end of the supply chain to stabilize the income of the front-end roles not only when the weather is good but when it is windy and rainy, or even when pests and diseases destroy crops?

Of course, farmers have to diversify their sources of income, but also financial support for producers to buy equipment to maintain coffee dryness, provide loans for future crops, etc. There is no one-size-fits-all solution to harvesting rainfall, but there are plenty of ways to support producers in the face of volatile weather conditions, and it's not too far off.

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