The importance of buying coffee seasonally…

People are often surprised to hear that coffee is a seasonal product. I was too at first, but think of it like this: the coffee cherry is a fruit, fruit goes in and out of season, and so why wouldn’t coffee do the same? There is, after all, a reason why strawberries and cream are synonymous with Wimbledon and not the Winter Olympics. But I digress.

Different countries have different harvesting periods and, in turn, different shipping periods. (Harvesting being when the coffee cherries are picked and sorted, shipping being when the coffee is sent overseas.) Some are more specific than others. For example, the best harvesting period for Kenyan coffee is between October and December, whereas in Colombia and Ethiopia the harvests vary greatly from region to region. Generally speaking, coffee is shipped within a few months of harvest.

All good roasters will adjust their range in accordance with these seasons. For example, Workshop Coffee Co. are now offering their final Kenyans of the year, while the fresh crop of their celebrated Colombia Finca Tamana has just arrived. Elsewhere, Heart Coffee Roasters of Portland, Oregon have also just released a new Colombian coffee on the back of some beautiful Ethiopians and Kenyans. In fact, coffee being a seasonal product is so important to Heart that they shout it out from the back of their retail bags.

To conclude, as a consumer, I would always rather have three or four fresh seasonal coffees to choose from than be overwhelmed by choice but unsure of each coffee’s freshness and quality. Once you’ve tasted the difference between fresh crop coffee and coffee that’s ‘past crop’, or old, you’ll never again question the importance of buying coffee seasonally.

This piece was originally published on blackcoffeeandotherstories.wordpress.com in November 2014.