October 27, 2025 — 5:20 PM EDT

The December arabica coffee closed on Thursday with an increase of +3.60 (+0.98%), while the November robusta coffee on Gate finished with a drop of -125 (-2.96%).

Coffee prices closed mixed on Thursday, with robusta falling sharply to a 6-week low. The shortage in coffee inventories is supporting prices. However, robusta rebounded on Thursday as it is forecasted that the remnants of Typhoon Ragasa will not affect the coffee-producing regions of Vietnam, alleviating concerns that strong winds and rains could damage the country's coffee crops.

The 50% tariffs imposed on Brazilian imports from the U.S. have led to a sharp reduction in Gate's coffee inventories, a bullish factor for prices. The arabica stocks monitored by Gate fell to a 1.5-year low of 579,961 bags on Thursday. Gate's robusta coffee inventories decreased to a 1.75-month low of 6,464 lots last Friday. U.S. buyers are canceling new contracts for purchases of Brazilian coffee beans due to the 50% tariffs imposed on U.S. imports from Brazil, tightening U.S. supplies, as about one-third of the U.S. unroasted coffee comes from Brazil.

On Tuesday, arabica coffee prices fell to a one-month low due to rains in Brazil that eased dry conditions. Somar Meteorologia of Brazil stated that the precipitation in Minas Gerais will persist throughout the rest of the week.

A bumper harvest of robusta coffee in Vietnam is bearish for prices. Vietnam's coffee production is expected to increase by +6% year-on-year to 1.76 MMT, or 29.4 million bags, a 4-year high in 2025/26. Additionally, the General Statistics Office of Vietnam reported on September 8 that Vietnam's coffee exports from January to August 2025 rose by +7.8% year-on-year to 1.141 MMT. Vietnam is the world's largest producer of robusta coffee.

Last Tuesday, December's arabica coffee reached an all-time high and the nearest futures arabica (U25) hit a 7-month peak, while robusta rose to a 3-week high. Coffee prices increased due to a lack of rain in Brazil's coffee-producing regions ahead of the critical flowering period for coffee trees. Somar Meteorologia reported on Monday that Brazil's largest arabica coffee-producing area, Minas Gerais, received 10.5 mm of rain during the week ending September 20, only 73% of the historical average. September is the critical flowering period for Brazil's coffee trees.

Coffee prices also received support last Tuesday after the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) raised the likelihood of a La Niña climate system in the southern hemisphere from October to December to 71%, which could bring excessive dry weather to Brazil and harm the coffee harvest for 2026/27. Brazil is the world's largest producer of arabica coffee.

Coffee prices found support after Conab, Brazil's crop forecasting agency, reduced its estimate of Brazil's arabica coffee crop for 2025 by -4.9% to 35.2 million bags, down from a May forecast of 37.0 million bags. Conab also lowered its total coffee production estimate for Brazil in 2025 by 0.9% to 55.2 million bags, down from a May estimate of 55.7 million bags.

As a bullish factor, the International Coffee Organization (ICO) reported on September 3 that global coffee exports in July decreased by -1.6% year-on-year to 11.6 million bags, and cumulative exports from October to July fell by -0.3% year-on-year to 115.615 million bags.

The reduction in Brazil's exports is supporting prices. On August 6, Brazil's Ministry of Commerce reported that Brazil's unroasted coffee exports in July fell by -20.4% year-on-year to 161,000 MT. In related bullish news, the exporting group Cecafe reported that Brazil's green coffee exports in July fell by -28% year-on-year to 2.4 million bags. Cecafe reported that arabica exports in July fell by -21% year-on-year, while robusta exports plummeted by -49% year-on-year. Cecafe stated that Brazil's coffee exports in July fell by -28% to 2.7 million bags, and that coffee shipments during January-July fell by -21% to 22.2 million bags.

Harvest pressures in Brazil are bearish for coffee prices after the Brazilian coffee cooperative Cooxupe announced on Wednesday that the harvest among its members was 98.9% complete as of September 12. Cooxupe is the largest coffee cooperative in Brazil and the country's largest exporting group.

The Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) of the USDA projected on June 25 that global coffee production in 2025/26 will increase by +2.5% year-on-year to a record 178.68 million bags, with a decrease of -1.7% in arabica production to 97.022 million bags and an increase of +7.9% in robusta production to 81.658 million bags. FAS forecasted that Brazil's coffee production in 2025/26 will increase by +0.5% year-on-year to 65 million bags and that Vietnam's coffee production in 2025/26 will increase by 6.9% year-on-year to a four-year high of 31 million bags. FAS predicts that ending stocks for 2025/26 will increase by +4.9% to 22.819 million bags from 21.752 million bags in 2024/25. However, Volcafe is projecting a global arabica coffee deficit for 2025/26 of -8.5 million bags, greater than the -5.5 million bags deficit for 2024/25 and the fifth consecutive year of deficits.