March 25, 2025
Located in Oceania and sharing a border with Indonesia, the island nation of Papua New Guinea is our next stop on our tour through the coffee producing countries of the world. Papua New Guinea, or PNG, is the third largest island nation in the world and is highly conducive to the cultivation of coffee. Of the 22 provinces in PNG, coffee is grown in 18, with most of the production located in the Eastern Highland Province, the Western Highland Province, and Simbu.
Although Indonesia and Papua New Guinea share a border on the island of New Guinea, the coffee produced in each country is distinct. This distinction comes from the way that the coffee is processed, wet-hulled in Indonesia and wet-processed in Papua New Guinea. Even though these processing methods sound the same, they are fundamentally different with wet-hulling resulting in lower-acidity and higher body coffees and wet-processing (also known as washed coffee) resulting in higher acidity and sweetness.
Coffee was first introduced to Papua New Guinea in 1890 when the Jamaica Blue Mountain variety was planted. Although coffee first came to PNG in 1890, it wasn’t until the 1920’s that commercial production really began. As the decades went on, the coffee industry in PNG benefitted from both internal and external factors. In the 1960’s, greater road infrastructure allowed coffee producers to transport their coffee from their farms to ports with far greater ease and in the 1970’s, low production years in Brazil created a greater demand for coffee coming from other countries such as PNG. Coffee production peaked in the 1990’s but has since declined from the peak annual production of 1.18 million bags. Even with a decline from the 1990’s production peak, coffee is still the 2nd largest agricultural export coming from PNG and supports over 2.5 million people.
While coffee production began in a plantation model, the changing dynamics in PNG have shifted cultivation to small scale farmers, with smallholders producing 89% of the country’s coffee. These farmers often grow coffee in “coffee gardens” alongside subsistence crops and can have as few as 20 coffee trees per plot. Today, the focus is on working with small scale coffee farmers to increase the sustainability of their farms to protect biodiversity, conserve natural environments, and to ensure the longevity of coffee farming as an industry in PNG.
In the global coffee market, coffee from Papua New Guinea has been recognized as a high-quality coffee with many coffee lots scoring in the specialty coffee range (cup score of 80+). With this in mind, there has been a movement in Papua New Guinea to try to establish direct trade relationships with buyers, securing higher prices for specialty coffee.
Our flavor experts at Westrock Coffee Company find coffee from Papua New Guinea to be smooth and to often contain notes of nuts, fruit, and chocolate.
