Harvest Season Is Starting: What October Means for Your Coffee

For most of the coffee world, October is when the work starts. Cherries are ripening on the branch from Ethiopia to Central America, and the beans picked over the next few months will be the fresh crop that reaches roasters next year.

Coffee has seasons, just like fruit

Coffee is the seed of a cherry, and each growing region harvests at its own time of year. Ethiopia and most of Central America harvest roughly from October to February. Brazil, the biggest producer in the world, harvests from about May to September.

Some origins harvest twice

Kenya has a main crop late in the year and a smaller fly crop in spring. Colombia, which sits close to the equator, has a main harvest and a second one called the mitaca, so fresh Colombian coffee comes to market more than once a year.

Why the new crop takes months to reach your cup

After picking, cherries are processed, dried and rested, then the green beans are sorted, bagged and shipped. The journey from farm to roaster usually takes a few months, which is why this season's harvest will start appearing in roasters' lineups next year.

Fresh crop versus fresh roast

Green coffee keeps well for months when stored properly, but it slowly loses some brightness over time. Roasted coffee is a different story: it tastes best within a few weeks of roasting. Both matter, which is why we restock our stores with fresh roasts every month.

What this means for you

If a favourite single origin tastes slightly different from one bag to the next, the harvest is often why. That is part of the fun of specialty coffee: every season is a new vintage, a little like wine.