Coffee Enthused

What Coffee to Buy in September

Coffee is a fruit crop. It gets picked once a year, and it tastes best for a few months after that, not forever.

These 5 origins are inside that window right now. It isn't a ranking, and it doesn't mean anything else on the shelf is bad. It means these are the ones most likely to be recent.

At peak in September

  • Kenya

    Blackcurrant, and a sharp juicy acidity.

    Best bought April – October

  • Rwanda & Burundi

    Red fruit, with a clean and silky body.

    Best bought April – September

  • Colombia

    Balanced. Caramel sweetness and red-apple acidity.

    Close to year-round

  • Brazil Southern hemisphere

    Chocolate and nuts. Heavy, and low in acidity.

    Best bought July – December

  • Peru Southern hemisphere

    Mild and gentle, with soft chocolate.

    Best bought July – January

What to actually check on the bag

Roast date and harvest date are different things, and most bags only print one. Roast date governs days and weeks. Harvest date governs months, and it decides how much flavor was there before anyone roasted anything.

If a bag names a crop year or a harvest, this list tells you whether that year is the current one. If it names neither, ask the roaster. The ones who care will know.

A bag roasted four days ago from a crop picked fourteen months ago is fresh and flat at the same time. That is the gap this page exists to close.

The rest of the year

This page shows one month. The full calendar covers all fourteen origins across all twelve months, with harvest windows alongside the buying windows.

See the full harvest calendar

Harvest and buying windows are typical, not guaranteed. Weather, altitude and region move them by weeks in either direction. Flavor notes describe what an origin usually does, never what a particular bag will taste like.