{"id":381667,"date":"2025-12-31T02:38:15","date_gmt":"2025-12-31T02:38:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/381667\/"},"modified":"2025-12-31T02:38:15","modified_gmt":"2025-12-31T02:38:15","slug":"promise-of-bumper-coffee-crop-in-2026-fuelled-by-explosion-of-white-flowers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/381667\/","title":{"rendered":"Promise of bumper coffee crop in 2026 fuelled by explosion of white flowers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Australian coffee growers are hoping for a bumper 2026 season to meet rising demand for homegrown beans.<\/p>\n

Fuelling that hope was the explosion of white, star-like flowers that covered coffee bushes across the country during November’s flowering season.<\/p>\n

\"Coffee<\/p>\n

Coffee farms are transformed into a sea of white as the trees burst with star-like white flowers. (ABC Rural: Kim Honan)<\/p>\n

Australian Grown Coffee Association president Rebecca Zentveld said it was the best flowering in six years at her farm in Newrybar, near Byron Bay.<\/p>\n

Ms Zentveld said the positive signs for the crop in 2026 were welcome after a smaller-than-expected harvest this year.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Rebecca Zentveld checks the flowering on her coffee trees. (ABC Rural: Kim Honan)<\/p>\n

Poor weather in coffee-growing countries, including Brazil and Vietnam, in recent years, has meant Australian growers have been well-placed to fill the gap.<\/a><\/p>\n

Beautiful blossoming<\/p>\n

Coffee plants are known for their short flowering season, generally lasting just two days.<\/p>\n

“That tiny little bud of the next fruit starts to grow for the next eleven months,” Ms Zentveld said.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Coffee cherries left from the 2025 harvest among the blossoms. (ABC Rural: Kim Honan)<\/p>\n

“Not every flower will turn into a little fruit; we will allow some to drop and accept that, and it’s a really good start.”<\/p>\n

The flowers present not only a visual sensation on farms. The short-lived blossoming offers a multi-sensory experience for growers and visitors.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

A European honey bee prepares to collect nectar from the white blossom of a coffee cherry. (ABC Rural: Kim Honan)<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

A honey bee with pollen baskets hovers over coffee blossoms. (ABC Rural: Kim Honan)<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Bees are kept busy collecting nectar and pollinating the coffee cherries. (ABC Rural: Kim Honan)<\/p>\n

The bees are busy buzzing about collecting nectar from the blossoms, which have a sweet jasmine-like smell that even wafts beyond the farm fence.<\/p>\n

“They’re going crazy, often what we do is hear the bees first, the hum, they will be out in force,” Ms Zentveld said.<\/p>\n

“We’ve had people drive past with their windows down and come in on the day that the blossoms are out because they could smell them in the air.”<\/p>\n

\"Rebecca<\/p>\n

Rebecca Zentveld and a tour group stop to smell the coffee flowers. (ABC Rural: Kim Honan)<\/p>\n

Rebecca Zentveld and a tour group stop to smell the coffee flowers. (ABC Rural: Kim Honan)<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

A welcome sign at Zentveld’s Coffee Farm & Roastery at Newrybar. (ABC Rural: Kim Honan)<\/p>\n

Welcome sign at Zentveld’s Coffee Farm & Roastery at Newrybar. (ABC Rural: Kim Honan)<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Rebecca Zentveld snaps a photo of some visitors to the farm with the coffee blossoms.\u00a0 (ABC Rural: Kim Honan)<\/p>\n

Rebecca Zentveld snaps a photo of some visitors to the farm with the coffee blossoms. (ABC Rural: Kim Honan)<\/p>\n

“It is just marvellous, just extraordinary.”<\/p>\n

Small variety with big potential<\/p>\n

Growers at the Zentveld farm are particularly excited by the amount of blossoms on a new coffee variety that is being trialled there.<\/p>\n

Ms Zentveld said one of the dwarf varieties, Marsellesa, had put out more flowers than her Kenyan K7 trees.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Rebecca Zentveld with the Marsellesa coffee tree.\u00a0 (ABC Rural: Kim Honan)<\/p>\n

“The blossoms are bigger than the two main varieties we grow in Australia,” she said.<\/p>\n

“So that’s going to be interesting to see if that equates to overall big-sized fruit or coffee bean.”<\/p>\n

Marsellesa, a hybrid of Sarchimor and Caturra developed in Nicaragua, is a high-yielding, rust-resistant variety that researchers believe could be better suited for Australian conditions than the Kenyan K7.<\/p>\n

\"White<\/p>\n

White blossoms on the Marsellesa coffee variety. (ABC Rural: Kim Honan)<\/p>\n

Coffee converts<\/p>\n

Ms Zentveld said speciality coffee roasters were crying out for locally grown beans.<\/p>\n

“They’re willing to pay the money for it, which is a wonderful thing to keep our growers going and profitable. That’s what we want,” she said.<\/p>\n

That growing demand has seen the industry expand further within NSW and Queensland and into Western Australia.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

A wallaby among the coffee trees. (Supplied: Kim Honan)<\/p>\n

Ms Zentveld said fruit and nut farmers in particular were turning to coffee due to issues within their industries, including local processor closures.<\/p>\n

“We’re now getting quite a few professional farmers who may have been growing macadamias, growing citrus and avocados in Western Australia, sugarcane and peanuts in North Queensland,” she said.<\/p>\n

She said the industry would benefit from these professionals putting coffee in on scale.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Coffee cherries hang on from the 2025 season during flowering for the 2026 crop.\u00a0 (ABC Rural: Kim Honan)<\/p>\n

She said the industry had solid long-term prospects as it moved beyond just import replacement and into export markets.<\/p>\n

“They do the maths, and work out that this is a crop that’s in demand and should be profitable.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Australian coffee growers are hoping for a bumper 2026 season to meet rising demand for homegrown beans. Fuelling…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":381668,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[64,63,205309,99,4244,205308,101705,205307,177414],"class_list":{"0":"post-381667","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-australian-grown-coffee-association","11":"tag-business","12":"tag-coffee","13":"tag-coffee-blossom","14":"tag-crop","15":"tag-flowering","16":"tag-horticulture"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381667","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=381667"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381667\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/381668"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=381667"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=381667"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=381667"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}