How long does coffee take to reach a roaster? From flowering to a ripe cherry takes many months. Harvesting, processing, drying, preparing and shipping the coffee add more time. There is no single number that fits every farm or shipment.
And that clock begins after a coffee tree is already growing. A literal journey from planting a seed to roasting its coffee takes years.
I wanted to follow the journey we can see on our own family farm: from one harvest ending, through the work of the next season, and eventually to the green coffee we can roast in Calgary. This first chapter begins in February 2023, just after harvest at Finca Argentina in El Salvador.
Or, as I like to think of it, we’re following the coffee toward the drum of Rosie, our roaster.
First, where does all that time go?
Once a coffee tree flowers, its cherries develop and ripen over the following months. The timing varies with growing conditions and the coffee itself. On our farm, I had described it as roughly nine to ten months; I would treat that as an observation about our growing cycle, not a schedule every coffee farm follows.
When the cherries are ready, workers pick them and the coffee goes through processing and drying. The steps differ for washed and natural coffees. Dried coffee may then rest before milling, sorting and export preparation. Samples can be sent to buyers for tasting and approval. Finally, the green coffee travels from origin to the roaster—sometimes across borders and an ocean.
Each stage has its own timing. Weather can affect harvest and drying; milling schedules, approvals and transport can affect what happens next. That is why a bag arriving at our Calgary roastery represents much more than the time it spent in transit.
If you are curious about what happens after picking, our guide to washed versus natural coffee processing walks through the two methods.
Meet Finca Argentina
The protagonist of this story is our family farm, Finca Argentina, in the mountains of Apaneca, El Salvador.
It is a place of coffee trees, wooded areas and steep ground. There are parts of a farm you can plant and parts you should leave alone. Working there means paying attention to the terrain as well as the trees: where the ground slopes, how one area responds to weather, and what each section needs after harvest.
We even have an area called Los Ausoles, where geothermal heat rises through the ground. The soil there gets too hot for coffee trees. It is one of the more surprising sights on a coffee farm in volcanic country—and a reminder that the land, not just our plans, shapes what we grow.
When someone tastes a coffee from our farm, I hope they enjoy what is in the cup. I also hope stories like this make the work behind it a little more visible. You can read more about our family and the farm.
February 2023: harvest is over, but the work is not
Our harvest had finished the month before I wrote this. The larger harvest team had gone home, and 27 collaborators remained as the farm’s core team. Many had worked with our family for more than ten years.
That change in the number of people is one way to see the seasons on a coffee farm. Harvest calls for many hands to pick ripe fruit. Once picking ends, the work changes. We assess the trees and the land, plan what needs attention and prepare for what comes next.
At the time, we had also gone about two months without rain. The trees were experiencing a dry period.
In coffee-growing regions with a distinct dry season, that period can help flower buds become ready to open when rain returns. It does not mean that more drought is always better, or that a coffee tree decides to produce cherries because it “feels a need to reproduce.” Flowering depends on the plant and its conditions, and severe water stress can harm a crop.
From the farm, though, the question was immediate: after weeks without rain, when would it come, and how would the trees respond?
What happens before the next harvest?
The months after picking are not an empty space between harvests. Our team looks at the health of the trees, the condition of different areas and the work needed to support the next crop. As this 2023 season progressed, I planned to share those decisions—including pruning and the first signs of flowering—rather than skip ahead to ripe cherries.
That is what I find fascinating about coffee. The moment people usually picture is someone picking red cherries. But by then, many decisions have already been made and many months have passed.
If you would like to continue the 2023 farm diary, Episode II follows the work we did after harvest, including pruning, assessing the farm and planning for the season.
And if you have a question about growing coffee, ask us. I am always happy to talk about what happens before the beans reach Rosie.
Alejandro