Coffee Growers Are Holding Back Sales Until Prices Climb Back Up

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Green robusta coffee beans are sorted for defects at the Highlands Coffee processing plant in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, on Oct. 1, 2010. 

Photographer: Jeff Holt/Bloomberg

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Hoang Thi Thom, a coffee grower in No. 2 producer VietnamBloomberg Terminal, isn’t keen to sell this year’s harvest.

With prices for the robusta coffee she grows down 18 percent in 2017, Thom has sold just a tiny fraction of the 6 to 7 metric tons she expects to gather this season. The rest she plans to hold back until after the Tet holidays that celebrate the Lunar New Year in mid-February.