Your coffee beans grow inside cherries, which dangle on the branch until a cherry picker decides they’re ripe and plucks them off. But this is a more complex decision than it sounds.

You may already know that green coffee cherries aren’t ripe, and red or purple ones are… but how ripe is too ripe? Are overly ripe cherries still usable? And what happens if a bird or insect has been eating the cherry?

SEE ALSO: Coffee Science: How Can We Improve & Identify Cherry Ripeness?

Delve into the work of a cherry picker in today’s video. You’ll discover the basic signs they look for – along with how to know when a cherry looks ripe but is unusable.

SEE ALSO: Origin Insight: Dissecting the Coffee Cherry in 2 VIDEOS

Feature Photo Credit: youtube.com/user/joelp63

Please note: Perfect Daily Grind does not own the rights to this video and cannot be held accountable for it’s content.