Coffee bean rain is needed in the beginning of the season when the fruit is developing and less later in the season as it ripens. When the fruit is ripe, it is almost always handpicked, using either "selective picking", where only the ripe fruit is removed, or "strip-picking", where all of the fruit is removed from a limb all at once. This selective picking gives the growers reason to give their coffee a certain specification called "operation cherry red" (OCR). In rare circumstances, the Asian palm civet eats coffee berries and excretes the beans. These beans are called "kopi luwak", and can
Coffee bean Coffee bean A coffee bean is a seed of the coffee plant and the source for coffee. It is the pit inside the red or purple fruit often referred to as a cherry. Just like ordinary cherries, the coffee fruit is also a so-called stone fruit. Even though the coffee beans are seeds, they are referred to as "beans" because of their resemblance to true beans. The fruits – coffee cherries or coffee berries – most commonly contain two stones with their flat sides together. A small percentage of cherries contain a single seed, instead of the usual two. This