Reference · harvest calendar

Coffee harvest calendar by country

Brazil and Peru pick coffee roughly from April to September; Mexico, Central America, Ethiopia, India and Vietnam mostly between October and April; Colombia, Kenya, Uganda and Indonesia also bring in a second crop. Add weeks of processing and export preparation, then the voyage, before fresh-crop green coffee reaches a US roaster.

Updated 2026-11-12 · sources listed at the end · no product recommendations

Coffee harvest calendar by country

Harvest months as each source states them. USDA means the US Department of Agriculture’s Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) country reports; AFCA the African Fine Coffees Association; Sucafina is a green coffee trader that lists harvest months on its origin pages. The last column is the USDA marketing year used in its statistics.

USDA groups producing countries by marketing year in its Coffee: World Markets and Trade report; each USDA country report used here that states a marketing year gives the same start month. None of these sources says the months are fixed: Brazil’s 2024 report notes producers who “advanced their reaping” because fruit ripened unevenly, and Vietnam’s 2025 report says heavy December 2024 rain may have disrupted the harvest.

Crop year, coffee year and marketing year

Three calendars appear in harvest reports, and a “2025/26” label can mean different months for different countries.

• Coffee year. The International Coffee Organization (ICO) reports trade by “the coffee year commencing on 1 October of each year”.
• Crop year. The ICO defines it as “the 12-month period from one harvest to the next”; the crop years it uses “commence on 1 April, 1 July and 1 October.”
• Marketing year. USDA says a producing country’s marketing year begins in October (Colombia), April (Indonesia) or July (Brazil), for example, and non-producing countries use October–September. Its July 2026 report puts Peru, Indonesia and Rwanda on April–March, Brazil and Tanzania on July–June, and Ethiopia, Vietnam, the Central American producers, Mexico, Colombia, India, Kenya, Uganda and the United States on October–September.

The two organizations do not always agree. The ICO’s August 2025 report says Brazil’s 2020/21 crop year began on 1 April 2020; USDA counts Brazil from July to June.

Where the sources disagree

• Uganda. AFCA gives October–February plus an August fly crop. The Uganda Investment Authority’s sector profile, citing Uganda Coffee Development Authority data, splits it by region: robusta May–August (Masaka and Western) and November–February (Central and Eastern); arabica April–June (Western) and October–February (Eastern and West Nile). Sucafina gives arabica January–April and September–October, robusta May–August and November–January.
• Kenya. AFCA’s fly crop runs April–July; Sucafina calls May–July the “early crop” and October–December the “late crop” for Central Kenya.
• Costa Rica. USDA: concentrated November–February. Sucafina: October–March.
• Peru and Mexico. Sucafina starts Peru in March (USDA: April) and ends Mexico in March (USDA: April).
• Colombia. Sucafina lists “year-round, depending on the region”, with the mitaca about six months after the main crop.
• Ethiopia. The USDA Ethiopia reports opened for this page give no harvest months; AFCA says October–December.

From harvest to a US roaster

The Specialty Coffee Association’s Coffee Decoded column explains that after picking, coffee is “processed and prepared for export over a period of weeks”; once ready for export and sale it is called “fresh crop” or “new crop”, and by the time the next harvest arrives, the previous year’s coffee is “past crop”. How long drying takes depends on the processing method.

Exports then follow the harvest at their own pace:

• India: “Traditionally, January is when coffee exports begin” (USDA 2017).
• Guatemala: in marketing year 2019/20, monthly exports peaked in April at 15% of the harvest, and about 55% had been exported by April (USDA 2021).
• Brazil: in March 2024, 81% of coffee shipments at the main ports were delayed, some container ships by almost 39 days (USDA 2024).

Arrival dates move too. Writing about Royal Coffee’s imports into Oakland, Chris Kornman reported that the top Ethiopian lots of 2024 “mostly arrived in late September and October”, while June “was a common expectation” for peak Ethiopian arrivals in the 2010s; in 2022 some coffees spent six months or more on the water. There is no single arrival date per country, so read the harvest months above as the start of the clock.

Storing green coffee

Green coffee keeps far longer than roasted coffee, but it still ages.

• Dry it properly first. The ICO’s 2001 mould-prevention guidelines set a ceiling of 12.5% moisture for green beans; FAO’s specialty, premium and exchange grades all specify 9–13%.
• Keep warehouses dry. The same ICO guidelines call for ventilated, leak-proof stores with bags kept off the walls, loading containers only in dry weather or under cover, and a waterproof or absorbent cover over the top layer in containers against condensation.
• Rest, then store cool. A 1966 University of Hawaii guide for Kona growers rests dried parchment at least 10 days and keeps green coffee awaiting shipment “in a clean, cool, dry place with ample ventilation”; it warns that insufficiently dried beans bleach in storage.
• Expect ageing. The SCA column says some green coffees lose their character within a few months while others hold it “for 14 or 16 months”. Washed coffee fades from grey-green to pale beige and then brown, and flavors turn muted. Cool, dry storage, plastic or mylar bags and deep freezing, which the column says nearly halts ageing, slow it.

Checklist: using the calendar

• Find the origin in the table and note its main and second crop months.
• If the bag gives a harvest date or crop year, compare it with the next harvest: by then the coffee is what the SCA calls past crop.
• Remember the roast date is a separate clock that starts at the roaster.
• Check which calendar a report uses: USDA marketing year, ICO coffee year or a crop year.
• For green coffee at home, keep it sealed, cool and dry; freeze what will wait for months.
• Log origin, harvest and roast dates in your brew log to compare bags from the same country across seasons.