Australia Skybury

Coffee is harvested by combing the trees, using the vibrating "fingers" of the harvester. These fingers are durable and flexible, but gentle enough not to damage the trees. The machine spends up to three seconds passing over each tree, gently shaking it so that only the mature cherries fall off. These cherries flow over a series of spring-loaded fish plates into a bucket elevator, which transfers them to a holding tank on the harvester to await collection and transfer to the wet plant for processing. Skybury harvests on average 1.5 tonnes of green coffee bean per hectare. Coffee trees can live in excess of 80-100 years and are sometimes referred to as a centurion plant, but productivity declines at around 10 years and peak production is between six and eight years. The harvested coffee is unloaded into vats of water at the wet processing plant. Each load comprises five to eight tonnes of coffee cherries and the plant processes up to 20 loads per day during the harvest season. The principle that good coffee is denser and, therefore, heavier than immature coffee is put to good effect here as water is used to clean and classify the cherries. The heavier coffee is siphoned off first and is sent through the classifier machine, which splits the outer cherry skin open and pushes the beans out. This machine also ejects any unripe cherries that may come in with the load. After the classifier, the coffee goes through a second machine called a pulper, removing the skin and pulp from the coffee bean. The coffee beans are then sent down a channel, which allows the lightweight coffee to be skimmed off, leaving the heavier coffee to enter large fermentation tanks. This coffee is then fermented overnight, changing the sugars in the bean and giving it a distinctive fruity taste. After 24 hours the coffee is transferred to the driers. Skybury's sophisticated processing facilities help to shape the flavour of our coffee.