Coffee Market Update, Q3 2026: Rain, Freight and Prices
Every quarter, Consolidated Services Group (CSG) sends out a short market letter on green coffee, the raw beans before anyone roasts them. The Q3 2026 edition is dated 1 October 2026, which happens to be International Coffee Day, and it is worth reading even if you never trade a bag. It covers the futures price, the weather in the growing regions, the crop forecasts for the year ahead, and the slow trouble in shipping and warehouse stocks. This post walks through it in ordinary language. Everything below comes from that letter, the numbers are forecasts or day-of quotes rather than certainties, and prices are written in cents per pound.
Where Prices Stand Against the Peak
The benchmark for arabica is the futures contract traded in New York. On the morning of 1 October 2026 it opened at 282 cents a pound for March delivery and 280 cents for September. At the end of 2025 the March 2026 contract stood at 341 cents, so the March 2027 contract is now 59 cents lower than that reading a year ago. Robusta, the other main species, opened in London at 135 cents a pound.
Set against the high, the drop looks large. In early February 2025 the May contract touched 433 cents, the most expensive green coffee on record, and the letter notes that the cost has been drifting downward in the 18 months since. Falling from a record is not the same as becoming cheap, though, and the rest of the letter explains why the direction may not hold.
A Wet Year in the Growing Regions
The first thing the letter points to is rain. South America has had far more than usual this season, linked to the El Nino weather pattern. The upside is that groundwater in the growing regions is in very good shape. The downside is that the wet ground may push back the start of the harvest. The trees also flowered two to three weeks earlier than normal, which gives buyers an early look at how heavy the next crop might be, though an early signal is not a measured result.
Asia is dealing with a heavy monsoon across Vietnam, Indonesia and India. The worry there is timing. If the monsoon runs longer than usual, harvests that normally begin in December could start late. A late start does not by itself shrink a crop, but it moves when the coffee reaches the market, and in a tight market timing matters nearly as much as volume.
Brazil Heads Into an Off Year
Brazil had ample rain in all three of its main regions, Sao Paulo, Cerrado and Minas Gerais. Agricultural scientists have raised a caution that so much water can encourage bacterial and fungal problems in new plantings and in the beans still on the tree. Because the 2025-2026 harvest came in higher than the year before, the letter expects 2026-2027 to be an off year in Brazil's alternating cycle.
Conab, Brazil's national crop agency, forecasts 67.6 million bags for 2026-2027, made up of 48.2 million bags of arabica and 19.4 million of robusta. The letter adds that Conab normally forecasts on the low side, so the final number may differ. That is worth keeping in mind whenever a single forecast is quoted as though it were the answer.
Colombia: A Smaller Crop and an Earthquake
Colombia produced 13.5 million bags in the 2025-2026 year, which is 1.36 million fewer than the year before. The forecast for 2026-2027 is 13.4 million. Demand for washed mild coffees, the clean, bright style Colombia is known for, is pulling up differentials, the premium a buyer pays on top of the futures price. The letter puts them at 115 to 130 cents a pound at the moment, so a buyer of this style pays well above the headline futures number.
The letter also reports a recent earthquake in Colombia that caused heavy loss of life and enormous damage to property and roads. The first priority was people, then infrastructure. Major highways have been inspected, repaired where needed and reopened, and the epicentre sat between the mountain growing areas and the ports, so government approval to reopen the road network matters for getting coffee from growers to the coast. We have not verified the details independently, and readers who want more should look to the Colombian authorities.
The Rest of the Map
Vietnam, which grows mostly robusta, is projected at 32.5 million bags this year, helped by steady, useful rain. Indonesia is forecast at 11.4 million bags for 2026-2027. India has grown into a large producer that mainly exports robusta, with a forecast of 4.0 million bags of robusta and 1.6 million of arabica, 5.6 million in total.
Mexico and the Central American producers expect a small increase thanks to good rains, with a combined forecast of 17.7 million bags. In Africa, Uganda is forecast at 7.5 million bags and Ethiopia at 12.1 million. Ethiopia's rise is sizeable, and the letter credits a government-assisted programme that helped farmers replant half of their growing area with higher-yielding, disease-resistant trees. Across the continent, growers typically harvest 85 percent robusta and 15 percent arabica, with Ethiopia the arabica heartland.
Freight and Warehouse Stocks
Two quieter problems sit behind the crop numbers. The first is shipping. Congestion around the world is pushing up the cost of moving coffee out of African and Central American origins, and shipping lines have started adding a war surcharge to container freight. Freight is paid on every bag whatever the harvest looks like, so it reaches the roaster's invoice either way.
The second is the reserve of certified washed arabica held in the countries that drink the coffee, the higher-grade lots that back the futures market. At the end of September there were 253,355 bags in the United States and 196,365 bags in Europe. The letter describes a steady, slow decline in these stocks, which tightens supply and lifts those differentials.
What a Buyer Can Take From It
The letter's own summary is cautious. Continuing challenges with crop output, shipping and reserve stocks will keep upward pressure on green coffee costs, even after the long slide from the 2025 record. Futures are lower than a year ago, but the forces that set the price have not changed: weather, freight and what sits in warehouses.
For a business that buys coffee regularly, the practical lesson is to expect movement and not a fixed number. Ask any supplier how often a price is reviewed and what moves it. Our own-label coffee is roasted for us by New England Coffee, so the market reaches us through our roaster, and we follow letters like this one for the same reason you might: the cost of a cup starts a long way from the break room.
If you run an office or a small food business and want to talk through how coffee reaches you, our office coffee service page is the place to start.
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