With Brazilian “Flowering” Season Underway, the Coffee Market Weighs Large Harvests. Call Sellers Take Heed.
As you read this piece, the 2026 Brazilian Coffee “flowering” season is helping set the stage for next year’s crop. With Brazil’s record 2026 harvest now making its way into export channels, and 2nd largest global producer Vietnam beginning harvest of its own large crop this month, call sellers in coffee have plenty to watch over the next 6 months or more.
Coffee Seasonals – Pressure After Flowering
Flowering season is the time in the Brazilian Spring when coffee trees well, flower. These flowers then drop off leaving behind a “cherry.” The beans are the seeds inside the cherry. Thus, the more flowers, the more potential cherries. The more cherries, the more potential coffee.
Flowering is a vulnerable time for the upcoming coffee crop and its successful conclusion brings a sigh of relief to producers. Growing season weather still has a role to play.
This year, there were the usual scattered rumblings of dry weather in Brazilian growing regions. But all rain is not created equal. Where and when it falls matters. Brazil’s weather agency, INMET, reported more frequent rain in southern Minas Gerais in October, while rain farther north was irregular. Its November outlook called for rain to help Arabica flowering and early fruit development. The agency also flagged heat through January, which could increase the crop’s need for water.
October rainfall compared with the 1991–2020 October average. Source: ERA5 via Open-Meteo; regional averages of four grid points.
What does all of this mean for price? Historically, the coffee market has tended to build a weather premium into prices during flowering season. This typically occurs as trader anxiety over flowering keeps the market supported.
Once flowering is complete and the upcoming crop can begin to be measured, this anxiety tends to come out of the market. This has historically pressured coffee prices – although, as the seasonal chart below shows, recent bull-market years have overpowered that tendency.
The 15-year pattern shows coffee prices fell from October to April in 9 of the past 15 years, though recent bull-market years have overpowered the tendency. The rain we’re watching now is for the developing 2027 crop. The coffee reaching buyers this fall is largely from the 2026 harvest.
Front-month coffee futures, indexed to 0–100. Shaded area: October–April. Source: ICE via Yahoo Finance.
Coffee Fundamentals: Bumper Crops in Brazil and Vietnam
As the world’s top producer of coffee by far, Brazil must be the focus of any serious coffee trader.
Thus, the size of upcoming coffee crops can have an outsized impact on price.
Conab’s September estimate put Brazil’s nearly completed 2026 harvest at 67.6 million 60-kg bags, up 19.6% from 2025. Arabica accounted for 48.2 million bags, up 34.8%.
Production in millions of 60-kg bags, by crop year ending. The chart compares 2026/27 estimates from USDA, CONAB, StoneX, Marex and Rabobank.
While growing season weather will play a role in the developing 2027 crop, the record 2026 harvest is already entering export channels. On November 11, Cecafé reported a record 5.33 million bags of total coffee exports in October, up 28.4% year over year.
October’s record covers all forms of coffee. Through October, Cecafé puts Brazil’s Arabica exports at 24.9 million bags, down 6.4% from the same ten months last year. The breakdown matters for May Coffee “C,” where the flow of deliverable Arabica is the more direct signal.
On the other side of the world, Vietnam, the world’s 2nd largest coffee producer, begins its annual coffee harvest in November. Harvest pressure from this country has historically played a role in price (helping to accelerate the previously mentioned seasonal tendency) as new Vietnamese inventory enters supply channels into year’s end.
The 2026/27 Vietnamese crop is no slouch either. Sucafina projects more than 32 million bags of Robusta and about 1.5 million bags of Arabica. As Vietnamese beans enter export channels, the most direct increase in supply will be in the Robusta market.
Production in millions of 60-kg bags, by crop year ending. USDA’s July 2026 estimate for 2026/27: 32.5 million bags. Source: USDA FAS PSD.
There is another side to the supply picture. The International Coffee Organization put New York’s certified Arabica stocks at roughly 230,000 bags at the end of October, the lowest month-end since January 2002. StoneX reported that certified stocks rose by about 21,000 bags from November 3 to November 10. We’ll watch whether that increase continues.
May 2027 settled at 260.45 cents per pound on November 11 and traded at 269.90 cents in a delayed November 12 morning quote. That 9.45-cent move is a reminder of how quickly the market can rally even when the harvest headlines look favorable for call sellers.
Daily prices through November 12, 2026, in cents per pound. The horizontal line marks the 360-cent ($3.60) call strike. Source: ICE via Yahoo Finance.
Price Outlook and Strategy
We are not in the business of predicting what commodities prices will do. You don’t have to either. As an option seller, you only have to get a rough idea of what prices are NOT going to do.
With large harvests in both Vietnam and Brazil and a historical seasonal tendency for lower prices into northern hemisphere spring, the case for seasonal pressure is worth watching. Tight certified Arabica stocks, however, leave room for a rally.
A bounce this month or next is not out of the question. Fundamentally based investors can evaluate any such rally as a potential opportunity for writing deep out of the money call options above the market.
We will be working closely with managed portfolios in a variety of strategies designed to capitalize on the coffee market this month.
Self directed traders considering May 2027 calls will need to evaluate current strike prices, premiums and margin requirements. May coffee options expire in early April; ICE lists April 9, 2027 as the last trading day for the standard May options.
Investors seeking more distance from the market can look for rallies in November as opportunities to evaluate higher strikes. Higher strikes do not eliminate the risk of loss.
As flowering progresses, the market will continue to assess the developing 2027 crop alongside the coffee now reaching buyers. If supplies increase and certified stocks continue rebuilding, selling calls could offer opportunities for investors into 2027. Weather and tight Arabica stocks can still upset that outlook.
Futures and options trading involves substantial risk of loss. Only risk capital should be used.
Conab crop estimate • Cecafé export report • INMET weather outlook • Sucafina Vietnam update
ICO certified stocks • StoneX market report • Futures quotes • ICE option specs • ICE option calendar
