Coffee and Seasonality

I’m sure most of you know that speciality coffee is seasonal. It’s one of the things that we love most about it. There’s always something new just around the corner, and always something to be getting excited about.  

There are a few origins (like Colombia) that produce coffee for several months every year, and some also have a second harvest - which means that we can source coffee from these countries for a big chunk of the year. 

On the whole though, we have come to associate particular times of the year with specific origins. For example, summer is when fresh coffee from Kenyan, Ethiopia and Costa Rica arrives, whereas Christmas time is all about coffee from Rwanda.

This explains why we tend to have a lot of coffee from the same place at particular times of year. We try to buy all our coffee as soon as possible after arrival and for the most part, we plan to sell each coffee within three or four months. This way, we can present you with beans that are in peak condition - and we always have space for new arrivals.

We get a lot of questions about new crop arrivals so we thought about putting our own calendar together - but then it occurred to us that we could ask some friends if we could just use theirs! 

Here, we have a coffee harvest calendar which has been developed by our friends over at Falcon Specialty, a great importer that was have been working with for almost ten years now. They have been kind enough to allow us to share it with you. There are plenty of others out there but I like this one as the information is clear and easy to understand. 

It’s worth noting that this is not a precise science. There are lots of factors that can affect both harvest and shipping times. Adverse, or unpredictable weather patterns at origin, delays at ports - amongst many other things, can all have an impact. 

Nevertheless, the information on this calendar will give you a rough idea when you can expect coffee from your favourite origin to arrive in the UK. 

Also in Coffee Education