39Papua New Guinea
1,004,000 bags (ICO 2009)In-depth country profile: production, varieties, classification, history, current situation and points still uncertain. Region: Oceania.
Papua New Guinea occupies the eastern half of New Guinea, the third-largest island in the world. About 95% of its coffees are washed arabicas. Nearly a million people live from the sector, most of them in tribes, in small villages with well-defined territories.
The country combines smallholders grouped in cooperatives and a few renowned large plantations (“Estates”), such as Sigri or Bunum Wo, in the lush Waghi valley. Mountainous relief, deep valleys, humid forests: conditions are ideal for quality coffee, and the government guarantees producers a minimum price each season.
- Botanical species
- Arabica (mainly), Canephora
- Varieties
- Typica, Arusha (Kenya origin), Bourbon, Blue Mountain (Jamaica origin)…
- Altitude
- 1,200 to 1,800 m
- Soil type
- Deep soils rich in organic matter
- Shade
- Forest and fruit trees
- Harvest
- Manual and selective
- Processing
- Wet process
- Preparation
- Mechanical and manual sorting (A plantations)
- Harvest period
- April to August
- Packaging
- 60-kg bag
The system rests on grades tied to screen size and the maximum number of defects (by equivalence on 300 g).
| Grade | Screen | Max defects |
| AA | > 20 | 10 |
| A | > 19 | 10 |
| AB | > 16/17 (50 %) | 10 |
| B | > 16 | 10 |
| C | > 15 | 25 |
| PB | 11-14 | 10 |
| X (blend) | - | 20 |
| E | > 19 | 10 |
| PSC (Premium Smallholder Coffee) | > 15 mm | 35 |
Since 1993, the Coffee Industry Corporation (CIC) also controls the quality of parchment coffees, classified into 4 classes.
| Class | Grade | Max defects (100 g) |
| Class 1 | Premium | 12 |
| Class 2 | Medium | 35 |
| Class 3 | FAQ | 70 |
| Class 4 | Low quality | > 70 |
The region of production and the name of the plantation are also regularly included in purchase descriptions.
History
Papuan coffee growing is recent. The world table of exports of 1922 does not mention it. For the Pacific, it retains only British North Borneo, New Caledonia, the New Hebrides and Hawaii.
Being absent from this list means one simple thing: the country was then shipping nothing that counted on the world scale. Everything was therefore decided afterward, without it being possible to say from which year.
The planting material, for its part, came from elsewhere, without exception. There are Typica and Bourbon, Arusha descended from Mount Meru, in Tanzania, and Blue Mountain from Jamaica.
The date 1728 attached to Blue Mountain is that of its introduction to Jamaica, not of its arrival in Papua. It is from the island that the variety swarmed out, to Kenya, Papua New Guinea and Hawaii. It therefore traveled for a long time before reaching the high Papuan valleys.
Ukers 1922, ch. XXII, p. 289-291 (exports of the producing countries), p. 290; World Coffee Research, Coffee Varieties Catalog 2025, Arusha and Blue Mountain profiles; Country Profiles, Marco De Sousa Rosa, 2026Ukers 1922, ch. XXII, p. 289-291 (exports of the producing countries), p. 290; World Coffee Research, Coffee Varieties Catalog 2025, Arusha and Blue Mountain profiles; Country Profiles, Marco De Sousa Rosa, 2026The country provides a useful counterexample on rust: Papua New Guinea three times believed it had gotten rid of the fungus, without these eradications holding. They serve as a negative reference against the only documented case of successful eradication, that of Puerto Rico in 1903.
McCook 2019; LC ch. 12Today
The volume at the head of the profile, 1,004,000 bags, is that of the profile (ICO 2009). About 95% of the coffees are washed arabicas, between 1,200 and 1,800 meters, with manual and selective harvesting. Nearly a million people live from the sector, most of them in tribes, in small villages with well-defined territories.
Country Profiles, Marco De Sousa Rosa, 2026The country combines smallholders grouped in cooperatives and a few renowned large plantations, the “estates” such as Sigri or Bunum Wo, in the Waghi valley. The government guarantees producers a minimum price each season, a rare arrangement among the origins presented here.
Country Profiles, Marco De Sousa Rosa, 2026Gray areas
- The date of introduction of coffee to Papua New Guinea is given by no source consulted.
- No production volume after 2009 could be sourced.
- The dates of the three rust eradications announced and then denied are not specified by the sources.
- The mechanism and level of the minimum price guaranteed by the government are not documented in the corpus.