Best Practices for Reading and Handling Zarr Collections

Hello Pangeo Community,

I’m currently working with Daymet Zarr collections (https://planetarycomputer.microsoft.com/api/stac/v1/collections/daymet-annual-pr) and exploring different ways to read and handle these datasets. Could you share your thoughts on the best libraries or approaches for interacting with Zarr data at scale? Specifically, I’m considering options like:

• ODC (Open Data Cube)

• openEO Python Client

• Direct Python libraries (e.g., Xarray, zarr-python)

I’d love to hear about any best practices or real-world experiences you’ve had working with Daymet or similar Zarr collections. Are there clear advantages to using a dedicated client library, or is a direct Xarray-based approach typically more straightforward?

Thank you in advance for any guidance you can provide! If you have relevant resources or examples, I’d be very grateful for the links.