Growing coffee in Malaysia & Singapore
Does Malaysia grow coffee?
Yes, but very little. Malaysia grew 2,861 tonnes of coffee in 2024, the agriculture ministry says, and imported 126,062 tonnes. Most of what it grows is liberica, the large-beaned "third" coffee species, in Johor, with robusta in Sabah and Sarawak. Malaysia's real coffee business is making instant coffee and extracts from imported beans.
At a glance
2026- Production
- 1.5m bags
- 2026/27 forecast, 60 kg bags
- World rank
- No. 15
- 0.8% of world output
- Species
- Liberica (about 90%) and robusta (about 10%), MARDI
- Harvest
- Liberica bears fruit throughout the year (Perak agriculture department)
- Area under coffee
- 2,332 ha harvested in Sabah and Johor, 2018 (Department of Agriculture, via KRI)
- Exports
- Coffee extracts and instant coffee, US$470m in 2017 (KRI)
- Main varieties
- Liberica (MKL clones), Robusta (MKR clones)
Production: USDA Foreign Agricultural Service, Coffee: World Markets and Trade (July 2026). Other figures describe 2026 and come from the sources at the end of this page. Updated once a year.
Growing regions
All originsMalaysia drinks far more coffee than it grows. Its farms, mostly in Johor and Sabah, produced under 3,000 tonnes in 2024, while the country imported more than 40 times as much. What it does grow is unusual: mostly liberica, the large-beaned species most of the coffee world ignores, which Malaysian planters adopted after leaf rust ruined their arabica in the 19th century. Here’s how much, where and why.
The short version
- 2,861 tonnes grown in 2024; 126,062 tonnes imported.
- Mostly liberica, about 90% of the crop, with some robusta.
- Johor for liberica, Sabah (around Tenom) for robusta.
- Production has shrunk for decades, as farmers turned to oil palm and other crops.
- A big maker of instant coffee and extracts from imported beans.
How much coffee does Malaysia grow?
Very little, and the figures don’t agree:
| Measure | Figure | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Production, 2024 | 2,861 t | Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security, via Bernama |
| Imports, 2024 | 126,062 t (about 90% of needs) | Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security, via Bernama |
| Production, 2018 | 3,369 t | Department of Agriculture, via Khazanah Research Institute |
| Production, 2013 | 14,739 t on about 3,760 ha | MARDI |
| Production, 2007 | 21,213 t on about 7,500 ha | MARDI |
| Production, 2025/26 | 1.5 million 60 kg bags (about 90,000 t, by our calculation) | USDA |
USDA’s estimate is about thirty times Malaysia’s own figure, and no published source explains the gap. Malaysia’s production fell by an average of 16% a year between 2010 and 2018, the Khazanah Research Institute found, and averaged about 25,000 tonnes a year in 1998–2003. In 2023 the deputy agriculture minister said local beans met only about 3% of demand.
Where is coffee grown in Malaysia?
Mostly in Johor and Sabah, and marginally in Sarawak, Kedah, Pahang and Selangor. In 2018:
| State | Harvested area | Production |
|---|---|---|
| Johor | 932 ha | 2,263 t |
| Sabah | 1,400 ha | 1,067 t |
Source: Department of Agriculture, via the Khazanah Research Institute.
Johor grows mainly liberica, around Kluang, Batu Pahat and Paloh. Sabah’s coffee centres on Tenom, known as the state’s coffee capital, which grows robusta; the state hopes local farms will supply at least half of the needs of Tenom’s four coffee factories by 2030. Perak has started planting liberica too, on about 51 hectares farmed by 48 smallholders, Bernama reports.
The coffee
Malaysia grows two species commercially, liberica (about 90%) and robusta (about 10%), MARDI says. Liberica, known locally as kopi besar, has large, teardrop-shaped beans, The Star notes, and, KRI says, a fruity and nutty taste with a long aftertaste; Perak’s agriculture officers describe aromas of jackfruit and pineapple. It suits Malaysia’s tropical conditions, resists disease and bears fruit throughout the year, Perak’s agriculture department says. Since 1981 the government research institute MARDI has bred liberica clones, from MKL1 in 1992 to MKL 8, 9 and 10 in 2023, and robusta clones from MKR1.
A short history
- 1870s–1890s: planters from Ceylon, whose own coffee had been destroyed by leaf rust from 1869, open coffee estates on the west coast of the peninsula, in Selangor, Negeri Sembilan and Perak.
- 1880s–1894: rust reaches Malaya, in the 1880s by one account and in 1894 by another, and liberica replaces arabica.
- Late 1890s: in British North Borneo, now Sabah, a railway is built towards Tenom, where the chartered company has coffee and other plantations, worked partly by Hakka and Cantonese labourers, Wikipedia says.
- By 1905: rubber has swept coffee away as a plantation crop on the peninsula.
- 1960s: the industry begins to shrink as farmers turn to more profitable crops.
- 1981: MARDI begins coffee research.
- 2024: production is 2,861 tonnes.
Where does Malaysian coffee go?
Malaysia’s coffee trade is mostly in processed coffee made from imports. It bought green beans mainly from Indonesia (49%) and Vietnam (35%) in 2013, MARDI says, and in 2017 exported US$470 million of coffee extracts and instant coffee, 6.3% of the world market, mainly to China, Thailand and Indonesia, KRI found. USDA puts its soluble coffee exports at about 2.5 million bags a year.
How do Malaysians drink their coffee?
In the kopitiam, the traditional coffee shop, as kopi-O, kopi-C and other mixes of coffee with sugar, condensed milk or evaporated milk, often brewed through a cloth sock. Kopitiams date from colonial times; modern chains such as Old Town White Coffee followed from the 1990s, KRI says.
Malaysian coffee and other origins
- Coffee in Indonesia: Malaysia’s biggest supplier of green coffee.
- Coffee in Vietnam: its second-biggest supplier.
- The atlas: Malaysia’s growing areas on the map.