Can’t the coffee picking process be mechanized?
No. Hand picking of Kona coffee is necessary because the gourmet coffee berries ripen at varying times. When some of the cherry are ready to be picked others need to be left to ripen. Another reason the process cannot be mechanized is that the volcanic lava landscape of the “Kona Coffee Belt” is hilly and rocky, and often quite difficult to traverse. The difficulty navigating the terrain with machinery makes in necessary to plant, tend, and harvest the coffee trees by hand.
