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Papua New Guinea

Highland Arabica descended from Jamaican Blue Mountain seed, grown in village gardens.

Production
0.8M bags (60 kg)
Altitude
1,000–1,900 m
Species
94% Arabica and 6% Robusta
Harvest
April–September

Production figures are for the 2025/26 crop year.

Overview

Coffee in Papua New Guinea is a highlands crop, grown between roughly 1,200 and 1,900 metres in the Eastern and Western Highlands, Simbu and Jiwaka. The structure is unlike anywhere else: the great majority comes from *coffee gardens* — plots of a few hundred trees attached to subsistence smallholdings under customary land tenure — rather than from farms in the usual sense. A minority comes from a small number of colonial-era plantations.

That structure explains both the character and the difficulty. Village coffee is processed at home in tiny batches with hand pulpers and river water, then carried to a buying point, so quality varies enormously between lots and traceability is hard. Roads are poor and the country is mountainous. When it works, the results are excellent — and the genetics help: a large share of the stock descends from Jamaican Blue Mountain Typica introduced in the 1920s.

Growing regions

  • Arabica

Shaded provinces contain growing areas; the crop covers only part of each.

1,300–1,900 m
Arabica

Around Goroka — the largest producing province and the industry's centre.

Harvest
  1. J
  2. F
  3. M
  4. A
  5. M
  6. J
  7. J
  8. A
  9. S
  10. O
  11. N
  12. D
Washed Blue Mountain Typica Arusha Bourbon Mundo Novo

1,400–1,900 m
Arabica

Around Mount Hagen and the Wahgi valley, including the older plantations.

Harvest
  1. J
  2. F
  3. M
  4. A
  5. M
  6. J
  7. J
  8. A
  9. S
  10. O
  11. N
  12. D
Washed Blue Mountain Typica Arusha Bourbon

1,500–1,900 m
Arabica

Steep, very high, and almost entirely village-garden coffee.

Harvest
  1. J
  2. F
  3. M
  4. A
  5. M
  6. J
  7. J
  8. A
  9. S
  10. O
  11. N
  12. D
Washed Blue Mountain Typica Arusha

In the cup

Rich and slightly wild: a heavy syrupy body, low-to-medium acidity, and a sweetness that runs to brown sugar, tropical fruit and cocoa, often with an earthy or herbal edge. The best highland lots are clean and bright-fruited; the more rustically processed ones carry a distinctive fermented, jammy character.

Chocolate Full body Stone fruit Earthy

History

Arabica was established commercially in the 1920s using Jamaican Blue Mountain seed, and expanded rapidly after the Second World War when highland communities took up planting on their own land. Coffee became the country's leading agricultural export by employment; the Coffee Industry Corporation was created in 1991 to regulate and support it, and coffee berry borer arrived in the mid-2010s.

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Sources

  1. USDA Foreign Agricultural Service — Production, Supply and Distribution — Coffee (2025/26) (read August 31, 2026) Cited for Production, Species
  2. Coffee Industry Corporation of Papua New Guinea — Coffee Industry Corporation (read August 31, 2026)
  3. International Coffee Organization — Historical Data on the Global Coffee Trade (read August 24, 2026)
  4. World Coffee Research — Arabica Coffee Varieties (read August 24, 2026) Cited for Varieties

Country outlines and shaded relief from Natural Earth, which places them in the public domain.

Growing-region markers indicate an area. They are not surveyed farm locations and should not be read as any.