Ethiopian Coffee Crop 2025/26: A Buyer's Briefing from the Export Desk

This is the seasonal briefing we give buyers who ask "what should I know about this crop before I book?" — the harvest arc, how the regions are positioned, what to check at the cupping table this season, and the booking windows that decide who gets the standout lots. We update it each season.

The season's shape: how an Ethiopian harvest unfolds

Ethiopia's main harvest follows the same arc every year, with local variation by altitude. Cherry picking runs from roughly October through January — lower gardens first, the highest plots (2,000m+) last. Washing stations process through the picking months; dry mills in and around Addis Ababa then hull, sort, and grade, with the first export-ready washed lots emerging from late December and volume flowing from January onward. Naturals, with their longer drying, follow a few weeks behind their washed counterparts from the same zones.

The regional picture for 2025/26

• Yirgacheffe & Gedeb: the reference profile — washed lots led by jasmine and bergamot from the high-altitude Kochere and Gedeb gardens dominated by 74110/74112 and Kurume tree stock. The highest-plot lots, picked last, mill latest — patience is rewarded.
• Guji: the innovation zone — alongside classic washed and natural lots, expect the widest range of honey, anaerobic, and extended-fermentation experiments from Hambela, Shakiso, and Uraga stations. Cup adventurously but contract against pre-shipment samples.
• Sidama: depth and value — berry-forward naturals and increasingly polished washed lots from Bensa and Bombe, often at friendlier differentials than the famous Yirgacheffe names for comparable scores.
• Harrar: the eastern outlier — sun-dried naturals with the blueberry-and-spice signature, harvested on a similar calendar but from a drier growing system. Supply is structurally tighter than the southern zones; book early if Harrar anchors a blend.

What to check at the cupping table this season

1. Crop year on every certificate — the perennial issue: mid-year offers with previous-season Q scores. A current-crop certificate is dated and signed; ask for the PDF. (Our offer-sheet guide covers the other four checks.)
2. Dry-mill quality — hand-sorting standards vary more between exporters than cup quality does between stations; defect counts on the arrival sample tell you who invested in sorting.
3. Moisture discipline — 9–12% at stuffing, recorded, with hermetic liners. The corridor's altitude drop punishes shortcuts, and it shows up as fade six months after landing.

Booking windows: the calendar that matters

• December–March: the serious window. First fresh-crop washed lots are cupped, and the named-station selections are contracted. EU and US programmes that want specific stations commit here.
• April–June: good coffee remains, but the standout single-station lots thin out; consolidation-friendly volumes and strong value picks are the play.
• July onward: spot and afloat positions — fine for topping up programmes, risky for building menus around specific profiles. This is also when recycled prior-crop offers circulate most.

Working backwards with the contract-to-arrival timeline: coffee contracted in January is at a European roastery from late spring, and in North America or Australia by early summer.

Compliance notes for this season's buyers

EU-bound programmes should treat plot-level geolocation data as a contract requirement, not an afterthought — the EUDR dossier walkthrough explains what to ask for before committing. US buyers: the sequence in our FDA walkthrough hasn't changed — the ISF-before-loading deadline remains the expensive one to miss.

How to get ahead of the next crop

Tell us your target profiles and volumes before the harvest peaks and we will reserve cupping positions on the stations that fit — you cup fresh-crop offer samples in the first wave, not after the trade has picked the shelf clean. Register your interest with the export desk, or browse current lots to calibrate what you're targeting.