2026-07-13 · 8 min read · 14 origins
The Coffee Harvest Calendar
Coffee is a seasonal crop, even though it's on shelves year-round. Every origin has its own harvest window, and that window — not the roast date on the bag — is where freshness really starts. We pulled harvest data across 358 coffees in our catalog to build a real, data-backed calendar for all 14 origins we carry.
When Each Origin Is Harvested
Harvest timing follows each origin's rainy-to-dry season transition, which shifts with hemisphere, latitude, and elevation. Click any origin to browse coffees from that country.
October – January (plus a smaller April – July "mitaca" crop)
One of the only major origins with two harvests a year — a large main crop and a lighter fly crop six months later — which is why fresh-crop Colombian coffee shows up on shelves almost year-round.
October – January
Yirgacheffe, Sidama, and Guji are picked in the same window, so freshly-landed Ethiopian lots typically start hitting US roasters in spring.
January – April
Higher-elevation regions like Huehuetenango ripen later than lowland farms, pushing the harvest window into the new year.
November – March
Santa Barbara and Copán growers pick through the dry season, landing fresh-crop lots in US roasteries by mid-year.
November – March
Tarrazú and West Valley mills run through the winter harvest, prized for meticulous honey and natural processing.
December – March
Oaxaca and Veracruz smallholders harvest slightly later than their Central American neighbors, often hand-picked in multiple passes.
November – March
Santa Ana's volcanic slopes are picked over the dry season, similar timing to Honduras and Nicaragua next door.
November – March
Jinotega and Matagalpa share the same Central American harvest calendar as their neighbors.
January – April
Boquete and Volcán's prized Geisha lots ripen slowly at altitude, extending the harvest later into the year than most Central American origins.
October – December (main crop)
Nyeri and Kirinyaga's main "fly" crop dominates the calendar, with a smaller secondary crop around April – June.
March – June
South of the equator and on the opposite cycle from Central America — Lake Kivu washing stations run their harvest in the northern spring.
March – July
Kayanza and Ngozi follow a similar calendar to Rwanda, just across the border.
May – September
South of the equator, so harvest lands in the northern-hemisphere spring and summer — the opposite half of the year from most Latin American origins.
May – September
Cajamarca and Cusco share Brazil's southern-hemisphere calendar, despite being much closer to the equator.
Crop Year vs. Roast Date — Why the Difference Matters
Roast date tells you how long a bean has been degassing since it came out of the roaster — the number every freshness-conscious buyer already checks (our Coffee Freshness Checker covers that). Crop year measures a different, earlier clock: how long the green, unroasted coffee sat between harvest and roasting. A lot picked in November and roasted the following March is current-crop; the same lot roasted 14 months later, from the same picking, is not — even if both bags show identical "roasted on" dates.
Green coffee does hold up better than roasted coffee, but it isn't indefinite. Brightness and aromatic complexity are the first things to fade as green ages past a year, leaving a flatter, woodier cup regardless of how carefully it's roasted.
