To maximize the quality and storage life of their fruit, they must harvest it at peak ripeness — the precise moment at which the adolescent apple reaches its hormonal high point.
It tends to be sold at varying stages of ripeness, which impacts the strength of its taste but its texture usually remains the same, hard and grainy.
The first specimens in early summer are hard and green and mildly acidic before they hit peak ripeness at the heart of the season, which is now.
Keiko and Frank Wells of Westfield Farm are best known for their avocados, which Keiko, with a gentle smile, carefully classifies by ripeness at the Beverly Hills farmers market.
But to get more restrained cabernets, producers find ways to insure full ripeness at a much lower sugar level.
The cupping gave the Caballero family, which owns Finca El Puente, a look into the qualities Mr. Giuliano values in a finished cup so they can trace those qualities back to a particular patch of land, or a type of coffee shrub, or a degree of ripeness at picking time.
At ripeness (developmental stage 6), which occurs about six weeks after pollination (end of July), the berries were 6 to 8 mm in diameter and turned to dark blue.
But Eberhard Müller, the executive chef of Bayard's, who with his wife, Paulette Satur, raises 65 varieties of heirlooms at Satur Farm on Long Island, said: "We try to pick at maximum ripeness, and at maximum ripeness they're almost not shippable".
