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Abstract. Coffee is an important commercial crop in the world due to its popular flavor and aroma. The essential step in processing coffee is drying, which determines the quality of coffee, thereby the market value. Most popular coffee drying techniques, sun drying, freeze-drying, and spray drying have their inherent disadvantages. Heat pump drying systems have been observed to have higher energy efficiency and produce higher quality output. Therefore, this research‘s objective was to investigate the drying characteristics of coffee in a batch-type heat pump dryer. A total of 370 kg (0.72 m³) of fresh coffee at 70.01±1.26% (w.b.) moisture content was dried in an open-loop batch-type heat pump dryer. Samples were collected from six different horizontal layers in the drying bin and two vertical sampling points. The average moisture content of the three replicates was recorded. Wet basis and dry basis moisture content, drying rate, moisture ratio, and color of coffee and temperature, and relative humidity of ambient air, and outflow air were measured and recorded. The SMER_hp and SMER_ws values for this heat pump drying system were 0.856 kg/kWh and 0.641 kg/kWh. ∆E value for coffee at 10.11±0.42% (w.b.) moisture content was 31.65. The results indicated that the ambient air conditions might affect drying behavior in an open-loop batch-type heat pump dryer. Further studies are needed to identify the impact on aroma and flavor when processing coffee in a heat pump drying system to rationalize advantages in using the heat pump drying technique for coffee.