May arabica coffee (KCK26) on Wednesday fell by -8.40 (-2.84%), and May ICE robusta coffee (RMK26) fell by -139 (-3.76%).
Coffee prices fell on favorable weather in Brazil, as showers are forecast in key coffee-growing areas.
Coffee prices were also pressured by rising ICE inventories. ICE-monitored arabica inventories rose to a 5-month high of 564,626 bags on Tuesday but fell back slightly to 552,192 bags on Wednesday. ICE robusta coffee inventories posted a 3.5-month high of 4,721 lots on March 3 but have since fallen back to 4,563 lots as of Wednesday.
NY arabica coffee prices have given back more than half of the rally seen last week and into Monday on the Iran war, which has closed the Strait of Hormuz and caused global shipping problems. The closure of the waterway has increased global shipping rates, insurance, and fuel costs, and raises costs for coffee importers and roasters.
Coffee prices also saw support from Tuesday’s news that Brazil’s green coffee exports in February fell by -27% y/y, according to Cecafe. Meanwhile, Brazil’s Trade Ministry reported last Thursday that Brazil’s Feb coffee exports fell -17.4% y/y to 142,000 MT.
In supportive news, Somar Meteorologia reported on Monday that Brazil’s largest arabica coffee-growing area, Minas Gerais, received 14.9 mm of rain last week, or 35% of the historical average.
Coffee prices in February sold off sharply, with arabica falling to a 15-month low on February 24 and robusta tumbling to a 6.75-month low on February 23 as signs of a bumper Brazilian coffee crop supported the global supply outlook. On February 5, Conab, Brazil’s crop forecasting agency, said that Brazil’s 2026 coffee production will climb by +17.2% y/y to a record 66.2 million bags, with arabica production up +23.2% y/y to 44.1 million bags and robusta production up +6.3% y/y to 22.1 million bags. Meanwhile, Rabobank said on March 4 that global coffee production is projected to reach a record 180 million bags in the 2026/27 season, up by about 8 million bags from a year earlier.
Soaring coffee exports from Vietnam, the world’s largest robusta producer, are bearish for robusta prices. Vietnam’s National Statistics Office reported on March 6 that its Jan-Feb 2026 coffee exports rose by 14% y/y to 366,000 MT. Vietnam’s 2025 coffee exports jumped by +17.5% y/y to 1.58 MMT. Also, Vietnam’s 2025/26 coffee production is projected to climb +6% y/y to a 4-year high of 1.76 MMT (29.4 million bags).
As a bearish factor, the International Coffee Organization (ICO) reported on November 7 that global coffee exports for the current marketing year (Oct-Sep) fell -0.3% y/y to 138.658 million bags.
The USDA’s Foreign Agriculture Service (FAS) bi-annual report on December 18 projected that world coffee production in 2025/26 will increase by +2.0% y/y to a record 178.848 million bags, with a -4.7% decrease in arabica production to 95.515 million bags and a +10.9% increase in robusta production to 83.333 million bags. FAS forecasted that Brazil’s 2025/26 coffee production will decline by -3.1% y/y to 63 million bags and that Vietnam’s 2025/26 coffee output will rise by 6.2% y/y to a 4-year high of 30.8 million bags. FAS forecasts that 2025/26 ending stocks will fall by -5.4% to 20.148 million bags from 21.307 million bags in 2024/25.
