Coffee Harvest Seasons: When Coffee Is Harvested by Country

Coffee harvest seasons follow the rains, and because coffee grows on both sides of the equator, coffee is being picked somewhere in every month of the year. North of the equator most countries harvest from about October or November into the first months of the new year; in the southern hemisphere Brazil, Peru and Bolivia harvest from about May to September. Close to the equator, some countries have two harvests a year. This guide gathers the main harvest windows by country, as published by the green-coffee importer Mercanta, explains the official "coffee year", and shows how harvest timing affects freshness on the shelf.

Why harvest seasons differ

Coffee trees flower after rains break a dry spell, and the cherries ripen over the following months. Where a country has one clear dry season and one wet season, it has one main harvest. Near the equator, where there are two rainy seasons, there can be a main crop and a smaller second crop, often called the fly crop or, in Colombia, the mitaca. Altitude also matters: higher, cooler farms ripen later than lower farms in the same country, so national harvest windows are wide (see coffee altitude grades).

Harvest calendar by country

The harvest and arrival windows below are from Mercanta's published coffee seasonality guide. "Arrival" is when green coffee from that harvest typically reaches consuming countries after drying, milling, grading and shipping.

Other importers publish slightly different windows, because every country has early and late regions. Our individual origin guides note where sources disagree; for example, Colombia's southern departments such as Huila run roughly opposite to the central regions (see Huila coffee).

What is being picked, month by month

Reading the same table by season shows how the world's harvest moves around the calendar:

• October to December: Ethiopia, Kenya's main crop, Colombia's main crop and Vietnam are in full harvest, and Central America and Mexico begin picking in November.
• January to March: Central America and Mexico continue, India finishes by about February, Ethiopia and Colombia's main crop wind down, and Burundi begins in March.
• April to June: Rwanda and Burundi are picking, Colombia has its mitaca and Kenya its fly crop, and Brazil, Peru and Indonesia start in May.
• July to September: Brazil, Peru, Indonesia and Papua New Guinea's main crop are in full harvest, Tanzania's northern and southern zones begin in July, and Colombia's next main crop starts in September.

The practical result is that roasters can buy fresh-crop coffee from somewhere in every season, but any one origin has a fresh window once (or, in two-harvest countries, twice) a year.

Crop years and coffee years

Because harvests straddle the calendar year, coffee statistics use crop or marketing years rather than January to December. The USDA's Foreign Agricultural Service, whose figures are used on our top coffee producing countries page, follows each country's own calendar: Brazil's coffee year runs from July to June, most Central American, African and South Asian producers use October to September, and countries including Indonesia and Peru use April to March. That is why a "2025/26" crop figure for one country does not cover the same months as another's.

When is Jamaica Blue Mountain harvested?

Jamaica's coffee statistics are kept by the Jamaica Agricultural Commodities Regulatory Authority (JACRA), and the Jamaica Gleaner, reporting JACRA figures in 2023, noted that the coffee crop year ends each July. Picking runs through the later months of the year and into the next; the same Gleaner report described a peak reaping season in October and November 2021 for coffee grown at lower elevations, and as on any mountain, higher farms generally ripen later than lower ones. That timing is why Hurricane Melissa, which struck Jamaica at the end of October 2025, hit at the start of the harvest (see Hurricane Melissa and Blue Mountain coffee). After picking, Blue Mountain coffee is washed, dried, rested, graded and certified before export (see how Blue Mountain coffee is processed).

What harvest timing means for buyers

1. "New crop" is seasonal. Green coffee is freshest in the months after it arrives. Roasters often rotate single origins through the year as new crops land.
2. Green coffee ages slowly, roasted coffee quickly. A well-stored green coffee can stay good for months, but once roasted it is best within weeks (see how to store coffee beans).
3. Weather news moves prices. Frost or drought during Brazil's season, or a hurricane in the Caribbean, can affect supply for a full year because there is only one main harvest.
4. Two-harvest countries can offer fresher coffee more often. Colombia and Kenya ship from both a main and a second crop.
5. Arrival lags the harvest by months. Drying, resting, milling, grading and shipping take time. In Mercanta's guide, Ethiopian coffee picked from October to January typically arrives from March to May, and Brazilian coffee picked from May to September arrives from October into the new year, so "fresh crop" on a shelf usually means coffee picked several months earlier.

Harvest and processing

The weather at harvest time shapes how coffee is processed. Countries that pick in a reliable dry season, such as Brazil and Ethiopia, can sun-dry whole cherries (see natural process coffee), while wetter regions favor washing (see washed coffee). The fruit removed at harvest can also become cascara, the dried coffee cherry drunk as a tea.

Disclosure: this site is published by Mamre Blue Coffee, a Jamaica Blue Mountain estate (see about us), so we rely on official and independent sources for the facts on this page.