Reading Coffee as the New Crop Year Opens: A COFFEE Briefing on Volume Up a Quarter, Earnings Up a Tenth
This briefing reads India's coffee trade in six parts, and the parts spell the crop: C, O, F, F, E, E. The new coffee year opened on 1 October with a bigger crop on the trees and a shipment record that is harder than it looks — volumes up a quarter, earnings up a tenth. The gap between those two numbers is where this year's coffee decisions sit.
C — Crop: a 4.04 lakh tonne blossom estimate
For the crop year that began in October, the Coffee Board's initial blossom estimate projects a crop of 4.04 lakh tonne, made up of 1.20 lakh tonne of Arabicas and 2.84 lakh tonne of Robustas. The year just closed produced 3.73 lakh tonne — 1.11 lakh tonne of Arabicas and 2.62 lakh tonne of Robustas. A blossom estimate is exactly that, an estimate made at flowering, and it will be revised as the season moves to picking. Carried as a planning figure, though, it says supply is not the constraint on this year's trade. Price is.
O — Overseas volume: shipments up 25 per cent
Exports in the first half of this financial year, April to September, came to 2.42 lakh tonne, up 25 per cent on 1.93 lakh tonne a year earlier, on permits issued by the Coffee Board. The full coffee year that ended in September shipped 4.52 lakh tonne, up 24.5 per cent on the previous year's 3.63 lakh tonne. Set that beside production of 3.73 lakh tonne: India shipped more coffee than it grew last year. The difference is the instant-coffee trade and stocks — a reminder that the export line is not a simple share of the domestic crop, and a fall in the crop would not cut shipments tonne for tonne.
| India coffee, Coffee Board data | Figure | Year-ago |
|---|---|---|
| Exports, Apr–Sep 2026 (H1 FY27) | 2.42 lakh tonne | 1.93 lakh tonne |
| Export value, H1 FY27 | $1.17 billion | $1.06 billion |
| Unit realisation, H1 FY27 | ₹4.59 lakh/tonne | ₹4.72 lakh/tonne |
| Exports, coffee year 2025-26 | 4.52 lakh tonne | 3.63 lakh tonne |
| Production, coffee year 2025-26 | 3.73 lakh tonne | — |
| Blossom estimate, 2026-27 | 4.04 lakh tonne | estimate |
Source: Coffee Board permit and production data, reported 1 October 2026. The 2026-27 figure is the Board's initial blossom estimate. Farmioc.
F — Foreign earnings: a tenth more dollars for a quarter more coffee
The value line did not follow the volume line. H1 earnings grew 10 per cent at $1.17 billion, against $1.06 billion a year earlier. In rupees, exports rose 21 per cent at ₹11,118 crore, over ₹9,164 crore — the exchange rate flattered the rupee line, as it usually does. For the full coffee year, value rose 14 per cent at $2.23 billion over $1.95 billion, again well behind the 24.5 per cent volume gain. Anyone reporting this trade on tonnage alone is telling the better half of the story.
F — Falling realisation: ₹4.59 lakh a tonne
The arithmetic lands on one line: per-unit realisation in H1 fell to ₹4.59 lakh per tonne, from ₹4.72 lakh, on what the Board's data report attributes to volatile global prices. A 25 per cent volume increase bought a 10 per cent value increase because each tonne earned less. For exporters working on thin trading margins, that mix — more tonnes to source, cure, finance and ship for less per tonne — raises working-capital needs while it lowers the margin that services them. Lenders to the coffee trade should read the H1 numbers that way: turnover up, unit cushion down.
E — Export mix: instant and robusta cherry did the heavy lifting
Calendar 2026 to 30 September shipped 3.67 lakh tonne, up 24 per cent on 2.96 lakh tonne, worth $1.79 billion against $1.61 billion. Inside that total, arabica parchment exports rose 33 per cent to 43,987 tonne, arabica cherry rose 16 per cent to 11,087 tonne, and robusta cherry rose 28 per cent at 1.55 lakh tonne. Robusta parchment was flat at 21,469 tonne. The growth engine, again, was instant coffee, up 25.5 per cent at 1.34 lakh tonne — more than a third of everything shipped. India's coffee growth is increasingly a value-added story, not a green-bean story.
E — End markets: Italy first, and the map is concentrated
On destinations, Italy continued to be the largest buyer of Indian coffees, followed by Germany, the Russian Federation and the United Arab Emirates. That is a concentrated map: the top of the list is two European roasting markets, one sanction-exposed market and one re-export hub. It explains part of the realisation pressure — European buyers set the reference prices this trade lives by — and it defines the demand risk for the new crop year. A soft patch in Italian or German roasting demand would not be diversified away by the rest of the list.
The decision
For coffee exporters, curers and their lenders: plan the 2026-27 season on realisation, not tonnage. The blossom estimate of 4.04 lakh tonne says the beans should be there; H1 says each tonne may earn less than the last, and that instant coffee — the fastest-growing line — ties earnings to manufacturing margins as much as to farm-gate prices. Contract cover priced off last year's ₹4.72 lakh a tonne needs re-testing against ₹4.59 lakh, and shipment finance should be sized for more tonnes at thinner unit margins. Volume is the headline. Realisation is the business.
PriceHub tracks coffee alongside 200-plus crops, so export pace, prices and crop estimates can be read against one board as the new season's picking begins.