Colombian coffee kept a 71.73 cent premium as prices fell 24.4%

SABy Sander · October 27, 2026 · 3 min read

Colombia harvested 14.9% less coffee while the rest of the world shipped more, and the premium on its beans nearly tripled

A pound of arabica on the New York exchange cost 24.4% less in September 2026 than it did a year earlier. A sack of Colombian coffee did not get 24.4% cheaper. The gap between the two, the premium a buyer pays on top of the exchange price for a given origin and grade, averaged 71.73 cents a pound that month. Twelve months before, the same gap was 25.2 cents.

The coffee differential went the other way

The New York C contract averaged 286.5 cents a pound in September, down 16.9% on August and 24.4% on the same month of 2025. Across those same weeks the coffee differential on Colombian lots climbed 7.6% to 71.73 cents, which is 184.8% above where it sat a year before. That was the eleventh month in a row of increases, according to the monthly figures published by Colombia's coffee federation.

The ICO composite indicator settled at 262.18 cents. Underneath it, Colombian Milds averaged 356.15 cents, Brazilian Naturals 290.19 and robusta 167.49. Every group fell. The distance between the top of that list and the bottom did not close, and the surplus that pushed the average down came almost entirely from one country.

Colombia closed a 12.65 million bag year

Between October 2025 and September 2026 Colombia produced 12.65 million bags of 60 kilos, 14.9% below the previous cycle. September itself was decent, 1.21 million bags and 6.3% up on September 2025, but a good month does not refill a year. Shipments followed the harvest down: 1.05 million bags left the country in August, 10.1% fewer than in August 2025, with the rolling twelve month total 11.9% lower.

Growers sat on what they had. The federation describes selling as limited through September while producers waited for better prices, and coffee inventories inside Colombia stood at 1.17 million bags, 17.4% higher than a year before.

Folk art illustration of a coffee branch with few cherries left and a thinly filled basket, standing for a smaller Colombian coffee harvest

Everyone else shipped more

World green coffee exports reached 10.94 million bags in August 2026, 15.6% above August 2025 and the fifth straight month of growth. Robusta did the heavy lifting at 22.4%, led by Vietnam and by Brazil's record crop. One group moved against the tide. Colombian Milds fell 5.6%, a tenth consecutive monthly contraction, as Colombia's own shipments slipped from 1.09 million bags to 1.03 million.

That is the mechanism in full: more coffee in the world, less of this particular coffee. Anyone following the trade's public data can watch the two lines pull apart month by month.

Folk art illustration of a loaded cargo ship beside a boat carrying one sack, standing for rising coffee exports and falling Colombian Milds

What arabica prices look like from the shelf

The internal reference price Colombian growers are paid averaged $2,069,100 pesos per 125 kilo load of dry parchment in September, 8.6% under August and 30.2% under September 2025. On 26 October the federation posted it at $2,100,000, with New York at 300.95 cents. Arabica prices on the exchange had climbed back over 300 while the peso figure barely moved.

A headline coffee price is an average across four groups that do not substitute for one another. When a shop says coffee is getting cheaper, the useful question is which coffee.