Well friends, here we are, in the month of March, and look at this—our first container from Ethiopia has landed! In a year that has been… volatile, to say the least… it does feel pretty darn good to see at least one logistical victory, and we are not above celebrating it.

Needless to say, this timing was far from luck. Mustefa Abakeno, whose coffees fill this very first box to its proud brim (if you’ll indulge the anthropomorphization of a shipping container), is a longtime partner and one of many producers in Ethiopia who have rightly won fame for their name, and he’ll be the first recipient of the credit to be doled out. From there, even acknowledging the benefits of scale, getting his coffee to the US before April is the result of a sustained, several-month effort to move decisions closer to the point of production and to empower the Co Qua crew in Addis itself. Since October, we’ve kept a steady roll of North American team members in and out of the country (altogether half a dozen of us made it out there in some context or another), supporting the fully built-out team on the ground. In addition to Moata and Asnake, this includes the addition of Tensay Melkie in the lab, tightening feedback loops and helping ensure that approvals, sample flow, and logistics could move in parallel with the harvest rather than waiting their turn in its wake.

Back in January, we framed our approach to this season not exactly as an attempt to move faster, but, more importantly—sooner. To sequence decisions in a way that would allow coffees to exit before the familiar late-spring bottlenecks take hold, and this container (as well as two more hot on its heels) is a direct outcome of that approach.

*There is, however, an immediate caveat: these coffees are entirely sold. As many already know, that’s not a quirk, but in fact a prerequisite for this sort of finesse amidst omnipresent urgency. Committing early, very early, and sustaining engagement from [roasting company] buyers to traders to sourcing is imperative for early season action to result in proportionally early resolution. Of course, even with this level of pre-commitment, such speed is not possible when up against the logistical challenges of smaller scale producers, smaller lots, and all of the ensuing fragmentation that that puts into the box.

But still! Even for those of you reading this without any claimed coffees on this container, there’s reason for excitement, as a couple more of our early bird departures are slated to arrive in just a few more weeks. We’ll talk more about those a little later on, but for now, it’s worth rewinding and reviewing the season so far.

PUSH & PULL

From the outset, this harvest grappled with an exceptionally tricky push/pull of economic pressures. Cherry prices opened at historically high levels—roughly double where they sat at comparable moments in the prior cycle—placing immediate strain on washing stations and exporters, all of whom operate as cherry buyers themselves. That alone was enough to slow collection in many places, but this situation became more complex as the season progressed.

With the C softening meaningfully during the middle of the harvest, a disconnect emerged between producer expectations—anchored to early-season pricing—and the realities of the market by the time coffees were ready (and expected) to move. This resulted in a sort of quiet (and occasionally not so quiet) stalemate: more conservative producers reduced output while maintaining quality, while others delayed sales in the hope that demand would close the gap.

On our side, this forced some reluctant tightrope walking. Across many groups, availability was uncertain not just in volume, but in timing, meaning commitments required more conviction, while at the same time the cost of being wrong—on price, on quality, on logistics—was even higher than in recent years.

All of this, of course, was before the United States started a war in Iran.

HERE & NOW

Snapping to the present tense, it is fair to say that things are volatile. In fact, I am aware that I’ve already said so—it’s one of the first things I find myself writing in almost every dispatch I’m putting out these days. But as for how this affects our work in Ethiopia, it bears repeating.

Outbound shipments from East Africa are among the most exposed segments of any coffee importer’s supply chain, as most routings pass through the Middle East—either directly or indirectly via the repositioning of empty containers. With the escalation of conflict in the region, that system has become substantially less reliable over the past month or so.

Like most of our peers, we typically work with Maersk, MSC, or CMA CGM for transit out of East Africa. Under normal conditions, each offers a relatively predictable lane: Maersk via Oman, MSC via Saudi Arabia, and CMA CGM via India and the Red Sea. At present, each comes with significant limitations.

Maersk, while still offering the most consistent scheduling, is facing a shortage of containers. CMA CGM has equipment available but is cancelling or “rolling” departures at a high rate. MSC—currently the only major carrier still transiting the Red Sea—is accepting bookings, but does not provide routing details until very late in the process, making forward planning extremely difficult. That, too, feels increasingly tenuous as conditions evolve.

The net effect is straightforward: fewer options, less certainty, longer transit times, and rising costs, both outright and in terms of financing as inventory remains in motion for longer periods. All of this compounds a structure that we’ve discussed before: in Ethiopia, timelines are not evenly chunked across the year. Coffees that miss the early export window—generally by April—do not simply ship that much later, they instead become disproportionately exposed to severe delay as container availability tightens and backlogs thicken. What might begin as a minor lag can quickly become a multi-month issue, hence the spread of Ethiopian arrivals from—in this case—March through… September? And in a year where both producers and buyers understandably moved more cautiously, those delays have, in some cases, been amplified even more.

SO WHAT?

Altogether, these dynamics have made for a notably tight import cycle, requiring breakneck hustle from everyone involved despite softer optics to show for it than in other places and seasons.

To start, our approach this year was intentionally conservative. Fun? Not the most, but hopefully with merit: leaning toward coffees that were fully prepared, more easily verifiable at the point of approval, and more logistically executable were our means of reducing exposure to downstream surprises, despite yielding a more limited spot position than we’re used to.

At the same time, producer-side hesitation slowed the overall pace of the harvest, compressing the window in which coffees could be purchased, approved, and exported in time to avoid bottlenecks, cumulatively resulting in what we see now: early arrivals arriving early, but with most of their volume already committed, and late arrivals arriving… well, you get the picture.

So for roasters, the implications are not especially complicated, but it is worth stating clearly: nowadays, planning pays far greater dividends more than opportunism. This has always been true, to varying degrees, but never so viscerally as now. The coffees that arrive early—and with the most favorable logistics and pricing structures—are going to be those that were discussed, aligned on, and booked earlier in the cycle (translation—ahead of it).

This reality also complements how our pricing model functions. The farther out a coffee is booked, the less risk we carry into that transaction, and the less risk mitigation needs to be baked into pricing. Amidst rampant volatility (hopefully no one has started a drinking game based around this word) both in-market and in-transit, this dynamic is even more pronounced.

To be clear, this doesn’t mean that smaller or more flexible buying strategies are untenable, it merely means that the invest/return cycle is stretched, and the opportunities for acceleration are fewer and farther between.

NOW & NEXT

While the first two containers are fully sold, they are not the only ones that made it out of Ethiopia ahead of the major movement milestone we’re now brushing up against.

The initial arrivals are anchored by western washed coffees, and that’s worth noting for those who would like to elbow ahead of their peers in future seasons: first Ethiopians to land are almost always going to be western washed lots, and they fortunately represent some of the best value as well. As mentioned earlier, two of the earliest lots this year come from Mustefa Abakeno, whose coffees continue to set a high bar.

Close behind, we have additional western offerings likely landing in late April/early May, with the last of the early bird departures stretching into June. These include coffees from newer partners like Abduarezak Mohamadami, a young producer in his second year working with us, thoroughly manifesting the hustle mentality, as well as lots connected to Habtamu Fikadu’s expanding footprint in the West. These coffees offer the most immediate opportunities in the current position—fresh, well-structured washed lots with strong value alignment. Not a ton remains available at time of writing, but enough that sparking some buzz is definitely worthwhile.

Further out, the broader cast of well-known producers from both the Bensa and Yirgacheffe will begin to arrive on more typical (if less desirable) timelines, stretching into midsummer and beyond. From Bensa, Bekele Kachara, Bekele Belacho, Nguisse Nare, and Bekele Yutute round out familiar names (with most of their coffees, unsurprisingly, also claimed by this point). Mengeshe Gumi, Yohanis Dogoma, Habtamu Fikadu and Gemedech Fulsa from Yirgacheffe are also on the way, as are Mustefa Abakeno, Tuke Yute, Musa Abalulesa, and Reshad Ababulgu from Agaro. At time of writing, there is still enough availability from Mengeshe, Yohanis, Reshad, Tuke, Habtamu and Mustefa to warrant an email to your trader.

As always, southern naturals and small producer lots will land latest, likely August and September, assuming shipping constraints/global conflict don’t continue ratcheting up—not necessarily a prudent assumption, but the best we can offer without resorting to sky-falling sentiments that do us no good at the moment.

QUALITY QUIRKS

Despite the myriad pressures of the season, quality has held at a high level across the board.

If there is an overarching shift worth noting, it is a relative rebalancing among processing styles. Naturals, which in recent years have occasionally felt secondary to more experimental approaches, showed particularly well this season—often carrying a liveliness and positive ferment character that blurred the line with the ascendant-in-popularity controlled anaerobic profiles. By contrast, some anaerobic lots felt a bit too lacking restraint, with a wider variance in cup expression, despite there still being plenty of winners making it through the offer stage.

Honey-processed coffees—particularly out of the Bensa group—were among the most recurrent team favorites, striking that quasi-mythical balance between fruit vibrancy and structural clarity that felt both intentional and fun. This builds on a trend we noted last year, where low-water, demucilaged processes began to emerge as a practical and high-performing compromise between logistical limitations and the prevailing desire for washed coffees in the broader market.

As ever, these are generalizations across a wide and varied landscape, but they offer a useful lens as the offer sheet continues to clarify and as we think ahead (we simply can’t help ourselves) to what we’ll prioritize next season.