I can see clearly two things that are going to happen in a country like Colombia, that is a big country that has a lot of land to produce coffee. I think in the future there will be some new regions producing coffee that are, yes, I think so, yeah, because you have some regions where you have too much rain and it's nonstop raining, so I think they're going to be less adapted to coffee. And on the top of that, you have some other regions that have some higher altitudes that in the past were not that adapted to coffee for cold, but right now it's not that cold, so I think we are going to see that. And the other thing that I'm seeing, and that is quite impressive, is how are being separated main and fly crop in Colombia.
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You'll find all the links and details in the show notes. Welcome to the Daily Coffee Pro by Mapper Forward friends. I'm your host, Lee Safar, and this is episode 1 of the first series of 2026. I'm crazy excited for this series.
We have everybody's favorites back on the podcast for the first series of this year. We have Angelo and Felipe. Guys, thank you for being the first series for 2026. It's a pleasure to have you back on the podcast.
Thank you, Lee. Thank you and Happy New Year for everyone. Very happy to be the first on the first episode of the year. Yeah, Happy New Year, everyone.
Thank you, Lee. Happy New Year, everyone. Yes. It is going to be a very, very interesting year in coffee, and that's what we're here to talk about, coffee in 2026.
I want to start, we're in a very interesting time. We've got a lot that we're going to talk about, and we are going to talk about all the things that you hope that we are going to be talking about. I want to start by saying two things. Thank you very much to everyone who supports our Patreon.
Our Patreon is a place where we really get supported by a lot of people, and that's really wonderful. The other thing that I wanted to mention is that I am going to be in Australia in February, and we are going to be doing an event, like a town hall, the Aussie coffee town hall, and it's going to happen somewhere around the 25th of February. So please join our mailing list if you would like details about that. It's going to be an in-person live event, and it is for everyone around Australia.
So we hope that, you know, it's going to be, it's not a panel discussion. It's not anything like that. It's going to be, we're going to look at talking about the future of coffee in Australia. So Stitch Coffee is hosting that, and it is going to be a wonderful event.
We hope that you will join us there. We're not going to spend any time with you guys introducing yourselves. Everybody knows who you are. And if you don't know who these two legends are, go and watch any of the very many times they've come on the podcast.
At this point, you two could be co-hosts of this podcast. That's how often you're coming on, and people love it. But in this episode, guys, we're going to talk about where we, where are we at in coffee as we start the year, and where do things go from here? So I guess I'm going to hand it over to you, Felipe, to start us off in where we're at.
And start wherever you'd like. Okay. We are at the tail end of the year of the snake, the Chinese snake, which is supposed to terrify, right? Yeah.
Going into the fire horse, as they say. So hopefully, we've shed the worst part of the crisis in terms of coffee production. So we have a relatively more stable forecast for 2026 and forward in terms of world coffee production. So I guess just recapping, the last few years have been, the last five years, I should say, have been incredibly challenging due to frustrating crops all over the world and wildly different predictions all over the map for global production, global consumption.
You know, part of that may have been made even more challenging than normal due to geopolitics. But as we said a few times before, there are interests between who makes the predictions and how they are. So yeah, we had a very, very volatile 2025 following the worst drought in recorded history in Brazil. And so there was a shortage of coffee again.
And when everything looked like slightly getting better, we got hit with tariffs from Donald Trump twice in April and then in July. So we saw prices in July through the end of August go up from around $2.90 to $4.37. So that's like a 45% increase in a month. So incredibly volatile, challenging market.
And then rains, floods in Vietnam and all over the world. But what looks to be for 2026 that five years going on of relatively high prices, producers are more well capitalized and good prices are the best fertilizer to, as we say, for coffee. So fields have been renovated. New fields have been planted.
You know, just driving around Brazil, we see lots of young trees, lots of coffee being planted. And it takes three years for that to hit, but we should see this next harvest, at least in Brazil, and I think worldwide, we should start to see the influence of that starting to come to market. So FC Stone has put a prediction, the first prediction of the Brazilian crop for 2026, 2027 at 70 million bags, which would make it the record crop. A lot of that's being pushed by incredible increase in robusta.
So conilon robusta farmers are the big winners in the last years. We had two years ago, robusta prices equal a rabica prices, and so that's stimulated, you know, more than a dozen percent increase per year in production of robusta and continue. So Brazil is, you know, straight headed to a scenario not too far away where robusta will equal or pass a rabica production. And we see roasters, more and more roasters looking at robusta in a new way.
And I made a little newsletter for Thought Coffee's customers at the end of the year where I made a cheeky table based on the who got it right and who got it wrong in terms of the predictions of the crop. And, you know, as you said, when I say there's market manipulations, it was really interesting. So I'll just share that a little bit of that, which is, you know, the Conavi, which is the official Brazilian institute, you know, as I said, usually the national, they under predict, you know, trying to push prices up. So they were 9% below.
They predicted 51.8 million bags. StoneX, their FC Stone, was the closest at 1.8% above what the production was at 58 million bags. And the final counting of the Brazilian crop was 56.5 million bags. And so USDA was 24% higher than what the prediction was.
So they were at almost 70 million bags they predicted the crop. And so they came out with that in June, just before the prices started to come down, you know, that they created. So we have had the first prediction, which was FC Stone, which has historically been the closest at 70 million bags. So we're looking at, in terms of coffee, we're looking at growing production.
Inventories will continue to be low at the moment, but it looks like as coffee and weather-wise, things are starting to look a little bit better. How about you, Angel? How would you sum up where we're at in coffee? Well, as Felipe said, it has been really challenging in many aspects.
What happened with the tariffs, I think it was hard for Brazil and it requested to some other countries to fulfill these requirements of the U.S. For example, we saw a way more coffee than we previewed to the U.S. because of that. And you need to know how you, not how to do these businesses, but how you get them, you know, because you cannot know that it's opportunistic and then how you make your forecasts for the future.
Because it could be one time and then it could happen same thing here. You know, right now the term of the tariff, I think it's getting a little bit more stable, I would say, or at least in what concerns the countries, the big producers of coffee. It was quite hard as well for many other aspects. If I can recall two that are very challenging here.
The first one is the currency. For the last six months, the peso has a strength of around 20%, which is quite a lot. So that makes products like the coffee be more expensive. And in a way, it gives us less competitiveness compared to other origins.
And I think that's something that was extremely challenging, but I think right now it's creating sort of a pattern is the climate here, particularly because we had a massive harvest in the middle of the year, like a really big harvest. And then the harvest of the end of the year was really small. It was small and concentrated. So it just came and was finished.
It was quite impressive. And why I said it has created a pattern, because I can see clearly two things Everyone who's listening to this is saying, OK, great, 2026 is going to be awesome. After hearing you guys talk, they're like, OK, everything's going to be fine. The volatility's finished.
Everything's going to be good. And you guys have done a great job in giving us the perspective of what's happening at origin in two different origins, not every origin in Brazil and Colombia. I would like to also add to that where we're at with regards to the consuming end of the model because it is very strange. As we start 2026, what is very interesting to see is the confusion about what is happening right now.
Roasteries and cafe owners coming off the back of the confusion and the volatility of 2025, are wanting someone to tell them, what's going to happen in 2026? Just tell me, is everything going to be OK or is everything not going to be OK? And I think it's a very interesting question because I don't think any of us have the answers. And the reason, after asking a lot of people why they're confused, one of the very interesting things that they're wondering is, why isn't there any normal anymore?
Like some people are, some brands who you would have thought they would have gone out of business, are accelerating and opening more stores or expanding their operations. Other businesses who you would have thought were for sure doing really, really well, are closing stores. And the consumer on top of that, the consumer seems to have endless amounts of money at a time where they're at the same time confused about when is prices going to stop going up. And so it is a recipe for disaster if we don't understand the real life volatility of what's going on.
So my question for you guys is, if last year the theme of 2025 was volatility or instability, what is it this year that you guys are expecting? The same, from what you both said at the beginning of this episode, I would assume that you both expect less volatility or no volatility. What do you guys actually expect? I'll start with you, Angel.
I think that the problem with volatility and stability that we have is that it's quite challenging to navigate it, to pass it. But I think the worst thing is that it makes us lose focus on what I consider that is important. And I think that that is, or that's the best hope I could have. If we have a more stable year that people in our industry could again bring back the focus on what matters for their businesses.
And what do you mean by that? Can you go a little deeper into that? Because people are going to want to understand, what is it that you think matters? What should they be focusing on?
Yeah, you know, I think I've said this in the past, but I think it hasn't changed, is that when specialty industry started, people had beliefs. People had a reason for which they were working the way they were doing. And I think that the current situation on specialty coffee is that people have lost their identity. And there is a lack of authenticity in our industry as well.
And it's like there is no renewing. And that's what I mean when I say this. But I think that we are in a moment where our industry, the specialty industry, should reinvent themselves. And I think that there are some things that we could leave behind that were quite shocking.
I would say the first one is the situation of price. Because prices went up and right now they are up. Inflation in the countries continues. And I don't see, even if market crashes and goes down, I will not see how we could be able to produce coffee at the price at the levels that we used to have, that we would consider normal and even high, like $2-$3.
That range of $3 before we would consider a high market. I don't think the coffee industry will be able to live on that anymore. So I think that the idea of having high prices, I think we could leave it right now behind. It was shocking.
It was brutal. But it was necessary to have the prices where they are now. How would the roasters explain to their clients tomorrow why prices are high and why do they support farmers at these levels as well? Why is it important?
I don't know if I can say that it's important, but why it is normal to pay that if you want to drink coffee? You raise something really important that I want to connect back to what you said, Felipe. So if I understand you correctly, Angel, what you're saying is we had price shocks that went through the entire industry. For some people, they were happy that the prices went up.
For many people, they were completely shocked and surprised at how they were going to have to respond to this, particularly roasters and cafe owners. What that demonstrated was we can pay those prices, but what you're saying is they can no longer be considered high prices. They have to be considered the average price or the floor price. Am I understanding that correctly?
Yes, yes. And how the industry reinvents themselves based on that. If our new reality is $3-$4, how a roaster would explain that to their clients from one side, but the other as exporters or importers, how are we going to work as a company knowing that we need to pay those prices for tomorrow to make it sustainable as well? I want to connect that back to something that you were saying, Felipe, which was there's a potential for this to be a record crop in Brazil.
And if, let's even say it's not a record crop, let's say it's a very good crop and that over the next few years, we're going to start to see, if everything goes well, we're going to see a lot of supply come into the market. I expect that given what speculators are going to do, we're going to start to see the price of the sea go down in that situation. Right, guys? Well, I think that's straightforward.
I guess I'm trying to give an analysis for people of coffee as a commodity at the moment because commodity market, the sea market has run over completely specialty. Not everyone, but that's part of, I agree with Anthol. I think it's the year for us to go back to our core values as a specialty industry. I've seen over the past couple of years, some roasters flourish and be able to tell the story and keep the quality and have a good communication and a good result with raising their prices.
And I've seen people really struggle with raising their prices and not being able to raise their prices. And just to finish on, just to add on the prediction, traditionally, commodities and coffee are a buyer's market heavily because there's more supply and the producers are in the weekend. We've been in a seller's market because producers have been cash heavy and they've been able to ask and command prices and they've been rewarded by waiting, which has frustrated relationships and frustrated a lot of different things. But it's played out well for some producers.
What hasn't happened is any delivery to the board. So global stocks, global inventories are at levels that are really low because it's not financially viable for anyone to deliver to the board because the differentials at the very moment are so high, what producers are asking basically, that it doesn't financially make sense to deliver coffee to the board. So we will continue to see global inventories at record lows and so there's no buffer to price. So we should continue to see some price increases.
Last week, we had really hot temperatures in Brazil and no rain and there was talks of a drought. And we saw a price spike and then rains came back and now the prediction is it will go down. But then you have Trump tweet or truth or Twitter or whatever he says about the sanctions on countries that do business with Iran. And Brazil does business with Iran.
So I don't think we're out of the woods. I actually think we are still very much in volatile territory. But in terms of production over the next few years, we should start to see more coffee being produced and we should start to rebuild the buffers and the inventories. And we should see, probably the way commodities go, is that we should see eventually the struggle between seller and buyer eventually go into a buyer's market.
It might take a year or two. And I think that specialty coffee, being very blunt, is like it works better in a low sea market. And maybe a low sea market, as Angel was saying, is no longer $1. Maybe it's $2.50.
But specialty works when we are a value proposition that's interesting to the producer. So we ask them to do extra work, extra stuff, hold coffees longer, send samples, all these other things that we operate slower than commodity. We happen to be the heroes again when we're willing to pay more. So at this very moment, the difference in price between commodities, the commodity differentials for straight-up commodities like fine cups, big cups, they're 40, 50 cents higher than they usually are.
And specialty has not gone up 40, 50 cents from what it usually is. So we've actually never seen such a small difference between specialty and commodity. And I think that's true for the final consumer, that coffee, bad coffee is almost the same thing. It's not that much different depending on where you're buying coffee, then you might as well buy good coffee.
And I'm in France right now. My wife has been finishing a job here and I've been visiting. And I have never seen in my travels a city living a moment that Paris is right now in terms of the flourishing of specialty coffee shops. I think it's the most amazing coffee scene in the world.
There are more than 20 high-end coffee shops per neighborhood, per arrondissement, they call it. And they're all full. People are paying. I mean, it's easy to find coffee at 15 euros a cup.
And it is just like packed of people drinking. Even I heard people are going to, Italians not going to like this, but I heard a group of Italian guys talking and walking There's uncertainty, and we're right on the edge of chaos globally. And what I have witnessed around the world right now is that people really are looking for community in cafes. They really are like trying to find other people to be around who might be like them.
And so the coffee industry is, on some level, benefiting from that, which is wonderful. That's the point of a cafe. It's a meeting place where people can come and meet other people and feel safe, you know, and engage and maybe forget about the world for a minute. And people used to do that in bars.
They don't do that. A lot of people are drinking a lot less alcohol these days. But there is one important thing to note, going back to the confusion that roasters and cafe owners are thinking about when they say to me, I don't understand where people are getting all this money from. It is really, really important that people understand that consumer debt is at record highs.
And that is really very important for us to understand because, yes, people are paying for LFA. I am shocked at how many people are filling cafes here in Dubai. It was not like this last year at this time. And when I talk to people about, like, how come you're hanging out in cafes more?
Yes. Why? Well, I don't want to be alone. I'm hearing that a lot.
People are feeling nervous. They don't want to be alone. They want to be around other people. How can you afford, because the coffee here, average price, around $15 for a latte.
How can you afford it? And they're like, I'm just putting it on my credit card and I'll figure out how to pay it off later. So that, I think, is a sign of the times of, yes, people are paying people, want to stay there. I am right there with you.
How they're able to afford it, given how expensive everything else seems to be, is explainable by, if you look at consumer debt, record highs everywhere. And I think that directly ties back to geopolitics and the uncertainty that everybody is feeling. And that's what we're going to talk about in the next episode, folks. So join us as we continue.
Please go ahead. Yeah, yeah, please. If I can just make one comment before we end that. I joined coffee in 2007 in the U.S.
I started working in specialty coffee. And just after that, the crash, the financial crash came. And I remember my boss at the time, he said, look, we're going to be fine because people, they don't quit coffee. Like they, they won't go out for dinner.
They'll go out one night, one night less for dinner. They'll cut something else, but people do not cut coffee. And I saw that and coffee grew 18% a year throughout all of that crash. Then coffee hit a spike in 2011.
People kept consuming. Now we've seen the last five years, people keep consuming. It's, I don't think people cut a coffee. They, they, they cut.
And then we also have the consuming side going up in Asia a lot. So, but as long as I've been in coffee, one thing's been true is people don't cut coffee. They complain, but they don't, they don't stop. But that's a really interesting point because what I'm seeing when I go into cafes is people are not ordering coffee as much as they used to.
I see matcha on the tables. I see iced matcha on the tables. I see signature drinks on the tables. I see coffee on the tables, but I don't see coffee on every table.
And I used to see coffee on every table. I don't see orange juices on tables. I see, um, and the demographics are really important, which lends to your point, right? That through the financial crisis that we've experienced, our generations, and I guess I'm the generation ahead of you guys, but Gen X and millennials, coffee was our thing, right?
We are the coffee drinking and the boomers, but we drank coffee and we'll continue to drink coffee. I'm not sure as Gen Z and when Gen Alpha start to graduate into going to cafes and things like that, I don't know if that's what they're going to be ordering, but 100% cafes are full. They won't be full here in summer, but they are full. And countries like Australia are doing it tough.
Really, the coffee industry in Australia is doing it shocking, shockingly tough. Um, but it seems like the cafe itself, whether it's selling coffee or not, seems to be a place that people are definitely going to. So, um, I guess on one side, that's great, but whether they're drinking coffee or not is another thing that needs to be examined. So we are going to, in the next episode, folks, talk about geopolitics.
So you know, this is going to be a very interesting conversation. Join us for that piece on peanut butter. Have an amazing rest of your day. If you enjoyed this episode, consider supporting Mapper Forward, our guests and advertisers on social media.
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