When is the new crop coffee coming? Our coffee harvest time table might help you answer this question.
Coffee is generally an annual crop. There are a few producing countries that can have 2 harvest per year (ColombiaColombian coffee is highly marketed and widely available in the US. They have been largely successful at equating the name Colombian Coffee with "Good" Coffee. This is half-true.... for example, or SumatraIndonesians are available as a unique wet-hulled or dry-hulled (washed) coffees. Giling Basah is the name for the wet-hulling process in Bahasa language, and will have more body... that has several peak harvests), but generally there is a season ranging for several months in which coffee cherryOriginally coffee literature referred to the fruit of the tree as a "berry" but in time it became a cherry. It is of course neither. Nor is the... ripens and can be harvested. Keep in mind that this information is approximate and can change from year to year a bit. The coffee production timetable for many origins is also shifting during the uncertain weather changes from global warming. So we can expect further uncertainty going forward.
And here’s another issue … you could get new cropRefers to fresh shipments of green coffee within the first month or two of the earliest arrivals ... not quite the same as Current Crop, which means the... Costa RicaCosta Rican coffee is typically very clean, sweet, with lots of floral accents. hey are prized for their high notes: bright citrus or berry-like flavors in the acidity,..., for example, in December or January … but would you want to? Probably not! Those shipments are lower grown coffees, lower altitude farms where coffee cherry
Either a flavor in the coffee, or referring to the fruit of the coffee tree, which somewhat resembles a red cherry.: Either a flavor in the coffee, or... ripens sooner. These are not going to have the cup quality of higher grown coffees, and will lack bean densityThe density of a coffee bean is often taken as a sign of quality, as a more dense bean will roast more with a better dynamic. The density... and brightnessA euphemistic term we use often to describe acidity in coffee. A bright coffee has more high, acidic notes. : A euphemistic term to describe acidity in coffee..... And sometimes coffee is “rushed” through production for market reasons, ruining any cup quality it has. Coffee needs careful, timely processingThe removal of the cherry and parchment from the coffee seed.: Coffee is either wet-processed (also called washed or wet-milled) or dry-processed (also called wild, natural or natural..., and it needs to “rest” in its outer parchmentGreen coffee still in its outer shell, before dry-milling, is called Parchment coffee (pergamino). In the wet process, coffee is peeled, fermented, washed and then ready for drying... layer for 30-60 days at least after drying.
Even at the good farms, there are still early, early pickings of ripe cherry that are not usually the best coffee the farm will produce. For that you need to receive a lot of “heart of the crop” coffee, the mid-crop pickings when the cherries have uniformly ripened. The best lots of a farm, their “reserve” lots come from these pickings. In our Costa Rica example, those would arrive in the U.S. starting late March through June, in most seasons. There are always exceptions, and there can always be a great coffee the arrives out of sync with the crop cycle. Sometimes the first Harar arrivals are best, oftentimes not. Sometimes the last Harar arrivals are best. Cupping
Cupping is a method of tasting coffee by steeping grounds in separate cups for discrete amounts of ground coffee, to reveal good flavors and defects to their fullest.... is the way we find out….
Also you need to factor in the difference between harvest time, the export period for that country, and the time it takes for the ocean voyage. That varies greatly. An El SalvadorEl Salvador coffee had an undeservingly poor reputation for years, marred mostly by the inability to deliver coffee of high quality in an unstable political climate. Unfortunately, agriculture... coffee could be available in the US 2 weeks after export. But a CongoKivu is the general name for East Congo (Kinshasa), covering a very broad geographical area, and the lake of the same name that divides them. It borders on... or RwandaA Bourbon cultivar variant from Rwanda and Burundi. Bourbon coffees are named for the island in the India Ocean where French colonists grew it. Some history from the... might be 60 days, 2 full months!
I have changed the table to reflect Best Harvest Time and Best Shipment Period … in other words, the peak of the harvest at good altitude farms … in other words, Specialty Coffee
Specialty coffee was a term devised to mean higher levels of green coffee quality than average "industrial coffee" or "commercial coffee". At this point, the term is of.... But this is still a very general and rough guide to the Coffee Crop CycleThe Coffee Crop Cycle refers to the period of growth of the cherry to maturation and harvest. Coffee has one harvest period a year, although in some there... and should be regarded as an estimate, not a definite.
