Mitaca and fly crop are a second harvest, not a lower grade

On a bag, mitaca and fly crop can look like a warning — a second, lesser coffee. They are not grades. Near the equator, rain can arrive in two seasons, so trees may flower twice and be picked twice in one year. In Colombia the smaller cycle is often called mitaca, and in some regions traviesa. In Kenya and a few other East African origins, the smaller or earlier cycle is usually called the fly crop or early crop. The words record which harvest window the cherries came from, not a cupping score.

In Colombia the two clocks do not run the same way in every department. In the centre and north — places such as Antioquia and Caldas — the main crop often falls around October to December, with mitaca around April to June. In the south — Huila, Cauca, Nariño — the pattern is frequently the other way around: a larger harvest around March to June, and a second picking around September to December. That is why, in November, one Colombian bag may be a northern main crop just coming in, and another a southern second harvest. Altitude and weather move the dates every year; a country name alone is not a calendar.

Kenya follows a similar idea with different names. The main crop is often picked around October to December; the fly crop, or early crop, is more often harvested around May to July. Volume in the fly crop is frequently smaller, and that can make offers scarcer, but smaller is not the same as worse. A carefully prepared fly-crop lot can taste cleaner than a rushed main-crop delivery. Read the word the way you already read a harvest year: it tells you when the fruit was picked, not how it will taste.

If a bag only says Colombia or Kenya, plus mitaca or fly crop, you still know too little to guess the cup. Look for the region or department, the mill or cooperative, the harvest year, and the process. Mitaca and fly crop tell you the cherries came from a second or earlier cycle in that year. The rest of the label is where the coffee actually lives.