Coffee lost the 300 cents per pound level in New York, pressured by the proximity of the Brazilian crop. The more optimistic sentiment regarding production also contributed to the negative price bias. At the same time, financial volatility remains on the radar, with the market following developments in the conflict in the Middle East. Operators are maintaining a risk premium, which is influencing coffee in the short term, especially on the NY terminal.
Despite the recent losses, the market still remains at elevated levels, after posting gains of more than 6% in March, which helped offset part of the sharp declines recorded in February. Even so, the difficulty in sustaining a consistent upward trajectory is evident, with the market once again tilting negatively in NY.
In general, the market is already beginning to feel the pressure from the arrival of the new Brazilian crop. The arabica harvest should gain pace from May onward, although there are already reports of producers starting work right after the Easter holiday, which may bring new crop coffee into the market as early as late April. The canéfora harvest, conilon and robusta, in turn, should intensify throughout April, contributing to negative pressure on prices.
The advance of the 2026 crop in Brazil tends to bring seasonal pressure to the market. Optimism regarding the size of production and expectations of a milder winter, possibly influenced by El Niño, reinforce this scenario of greater supply comfort. If a larger crop is confirmed, the fundamental trend is more negative for prices as the supply of new coffee advances into the market.
The NY arabica coffee price curve turns negative again
The NY arabica coffee price curve reflects this scenario by once again showing a negative slope at the beginning of April, after a brief rebound in March. This suggests that the gains seen in the previous month were more related to the financial environment than to a structural change in market fundamentals.
In this way, the price curve once again moves away from the 2024 line and begins to converge toward 2025 levels, 370 c/lb, but it still remains far from the average reference of the last five years, 2021 to 2025, for the month of April, which stands at around 227 cents/lb. The fact is that despite this negative adjustment, prices are still at historically elevated levels, ensuring good profitability for arabica producers.
The arrival of the Brazilian crop represents the first major inflection point in arabica supply in the 2026/27 season, Jul/Jun, and may reinforce the change in the fundamental picture, with supply growth above consumption, the generation of surpluses, and, consequently, inventory rebuilding. This scenario indicates more comfortable supply, which tends to put negative pressure on the market’s equilibrium price.
Last year, in July, the average NY arabica quotation was around 289 cents/lb under pressure from the arrival of Brazil’s new crop and future expectations of improved supply, especially with the recovery of global robusta production. Subsequently, the market moved higher again, driven by trade tensions, especially those related to US tariffs on Brazilian coffee.
This year, prices are already much closer to the minimum levels seen in 2025. In addition, the crop to be harvested in 2026, particularly arabica, should be much larger than the one harvested in 2025. In this context, the possibility of prices falling below last year’s lows becomes quite plausible. In view of this, it is possible that the market may try to narrow the gap relative to the average reference of the last five years, something around 213 cents/lb for the month of July.
