The destination sets the price of Peruvian Geisha coffee

What a kilo of Peruvian Geisha and Bourbon coffee cost, by destination

Peru shipped 194 lots of green coffee under a named Geisha or Bourbon variety between January 2025 and August 2026. Almost all of them are microlots, bought by roasters who choose by variety and pay for the name on the bag. In this record that name accounts for less of the price than the destination does.

A specialty offer leads with the variety and the process, which is what a buyer reads first on a sheet. Neither of them separates these shipments the way the destination does, and the gap between them is not a rounding difference.

The process does not separate these lots

Within Peruvian Geisha coffee, washed lots averaged $25.29 a kilo, naturals $25.55 and honeys $25.73. Those prices sit within cents of each other.

The process is what an exporter builds the story around, and it is the line a buyer is asked to pay a premium for. Across these shipments it moved the price by cents.

Read by variety, the numbers behave

Geisha coffee averaged $22.24 a kilo in 2025 and Bourbon coffee $10.67. That is the order the trade expects, and it holds for as long as the shipments are read together.

Most of what gets quoted about Peruvian coffee rests on averages of that kind, and they are quoted in good faith by people who have no better figure at hand. They describe the whole record rather than the lot a roaster is about to buy, and the difference between those two things is where the money sits.

Read by destination, that order breaks

Japan paid $28.94 a kilo for Peruvian Geisha coffee and China $25.38, while Germany bought the same variety at $11.45.

Four of the ten destinations that took the most volume paid less for their Geisha coffee than Japan was paying for Bourbon coffee over those same months. The distance between destinations inside a single variety is wider than the distance between the varieties themselves, and it holds in both years of the record.

Germany paid more for Bourbon coffee than for Geisha coffee

German buyers took Bourbon coffee at $14.19 a kilo and Geisha coffee at $11.45 in the same year. The variety on its own cannot produce a result in that direction.

The export record for those months does not say why. The honest reading is that those lots went to buyers working to different briefs, which is exactly the point: the name on the bag did not decide the number.

The exporter list turns over every year

30 Peruvian exporters shipped a named lot in 2025 and 22 have shipped so far in 2026. The rest of each list started shipping in the first year and not in the second, or the other way around.

Only seven appear in both years, and 46% of the kilos sit with five of them. A shortlist built on last year's names is mostly out of date by now. The supply side of this trade is not a fixed group of houses that a buyer learns once and keeps.

The lots are small, and there are few of them

The median shipment weighs 210 kilos, closer to a pallet than to a container. At that size a buyer paying above the average moves the average, and an unusual lot shows up in the figure for a whole country.

The shipment record gives the price and the destination, never the reason. Cup score, farm, relationship and who gave ground in the negotiation all end up inside the same number. This year's column stops in August, and a record this thin cannot settle a trend.

What this changes in a negotiation

Both years point the same way. Whoever buys in your market has been paying a number that has more to do with that market than with the variety written on the bag.

By the time the harvest gets committed the exporter already knows what your market pays for Geisha coffee. Walking into that conversation with the same number costs nothing, and it changes where the conversation starts.

Common questions

What did Peruvian Geisha coffee cost per kilo in 2025 and 2026?

It depends on the destination. Japan paid $28.94 a kilo across January 2025 to 15 August 2026, China $25.38 and the United States $27.92, while Germany bought at $11.45 and Argentina at $14.38. The 2025 average across all destinations was $22.24 a kilo.

Is Geisha coffee always dearer than Bourbon coffee in Peru?

No. Of the 15 destinations that bought both varieties between January 2025 and 15 August 2026, 13 paid more for Geisha coffee and two did not. Germany paid $14.19 a kilo for Bourbon coffee against $11.45 for Geisha coffee, and Colombia paid $8.41 for both.

Does the processing method change the price of Peruvian Geisha coffee?

Barely. Across January 2025 to 15 August 2026, washed lots averaged $25.29 a kilo, naturals $25.55 and honeys $25.73, a spread of cents, while the same variety ran from $11.45 to $28.94 a kilo depending on where it landed.

How many Peruvian exporters ship named Geisha or Bourbon lots?

30 shipped a named lot in 2025 and 22 have shipped so far in 2026. Only seven appear in both years, and 46% of the kilos sit with five of those seven.

How big is this trade, and how complete are the figures?

There are 194 shipments between January 2025 and 15 August 2026, and half of them weigh under 210 kilos. The figures come from the Peruvian export record, which gives the price and the destination and never the reason, and this year's column stops on 15 August.