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Scientists rediscover lost coffee species suited to a warmer climate

263 points by throw0101a 5y ago

throw0101a 5y ago
Coffea stenophylla: > Coffea affinis and C. stenophylla may possess useful traits for coffee crop plant development, including taste differentiation, disease resistance, and climate resilience. These attributes would be best accessed via breeding programs, although the species may have niche-market potential via minimal domestication. * https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpls.2020.00616/full https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpls.2020.00616...
axaxs 5y ago
I wonder why they made no mention of Liberica, which is currently grown in very hot climates? I'd be interested in how they compare.
- cratermoon 5y ago
  Good question. A quick search suggests that right now it's not widely grown, less than 1% of all coffee grown, and the flavor profile – sweeter and fruitier – is not popular with the coffee world. It's also said to be less productive than arabica and robusta.
  - axaxs 5y ago
    Perhaps if you drink it lightly roasted? I had some made in Batangas and it was dark roasted, and tasted like your typical dark roast of anything else...to me.
andrewxdiamond 5y ago
A hacker news favorite, James Hoffmann, got the opportunity to taste this lost coffee about a month ago. As typical with a James video, it’s high quality and worth a watch. https://youtu.be/iGL7LtgC_0I https://youtu.be/iGL7LtgC_0I
- phnofive 5y ago
  TL;DW: it's got a clean, sweet, mildly acidic flavor.
  - pedroma 5y ago
    Maybe this is the joke, but it seems he says that every video.
    - qbasic_forever 5y ago
      Not in the videos where he tastes 50 year old coffee beans someone found in their attic. :)
      - mths 5y ago
        Aged coffee is a thing. I tried something in the 10-15yo range once, and for a dark roast it wasn't bad.
        Stratoscope 5y ago
        Was this coffee that was roasted and then aged for that long? That doesn't sound good. I have gotten some nice aged coffees, an aged Sumatra and a monsooned Malabar (they age it in a warehouse open to the monsoon wind and moisture). But these were aged while green and I roasted them fresh. I wonder if what you got was something more like that, aged green and then roasted after aging?
        belval 5y ago
        A dark roast that is aged would taste bland. Usually darker roast = faster degradation.
        klyrs 5y ago
        A good dark roast is often oily, so they tend to go rancid in a span of months unless hermetically sealed
bioinformatics 5y ago
So, was it warmer before?
- cmrdporcupine 5y ago
  Maybe try reading the article.
- mackal 5y ago
  I don't think it was in the article, but apparently it has a lower yield and smaller berries. So basically economics caused it to stop being commercially cultivated.
re 5y ago
Lake Street Dive released a song last year that touched on the impact of climate change on coffee, among other things. One of my favorite songs of the year, though it doesn't make me feel great. > To the next generation, / Merry Christmas / You're working harder than ever now / And the coffee sucks / You know, Colombia and Kenya got too damn hot / And now you're making do with what you got https://smarturl.it/makingdo https://smarturl.it/makingdo
- Udik 5y ago
  And the news are yet another proof that many of the climate change doom scenarios start from the assumption of a perfectly static world incapable of change or adaptation. This coffee species seems to taste even better than the one we use now (and yet the production with the current plant, far from decreasing because of climate change, has in fact grown 60% in the last 20 years).
selfsimilar 5y ago
Slightly OT but is there a resource to find local coffee alternatives – plants that produce caffeine or other mild stimulants – to try to reduce one’s shipping/carbon footprint? I found it difficult to even know what local alternatives there are. For reference I’m in the US midwest, but I’m curious about how one finds local alternatives that are not one-to-one more generally.
- WaxProlix 5y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caffeine#Natural_occurrence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caffeine#Natural_occurrence Not sure what they're referring to by unrelated plants in 'temperate climates', which I suspect parts of the midwest might be generously described as. I bet you could grow some of the linked items in a garden or smallish greenhouse, though.
- hundreddaysoff 5y ago
  How about chicory? It's naturalized to the US. Easy to grow perennial with pretty flowers that would look great in the garden.
  - WaxProlix 5y ago
    Afaik there is no caffeine in chicory, if that's a meaningful discriminator.
- SECProto 5y ago
  In terms of carbon footprint, coffee (as a low gram-per-serving product) is probably low. For example, I consume ~200g/week of coffee (10kg/yr), all of which would be shipped in 25kg bags from the producing locale to my local roastery. The shipping carbon impact would likely be easily offset by a single consumer item purchased from overseas
  - maddyboo 5y ago
    Water usage may be a larger concern than shipping. From Wikipedia: > Coffee production use a large volume of water. On average it takes about 140 liters (37 U.S. gal) of water to grow the coffee beans needed to produce one cup of coffee, producing 1 kg (2.2 lb) of roasted coffee in Africa, South America or Asia requires 26,400 liters (7,000 U.S. gal) of water. Coffee is often grown in countries where there is a water shortage, such as Ethiopia. So, assuming those numbers are accurate, your 10kg year of coffee required 264,000 liters of water, or just over 10% the volume of an Olympic swimming pool (2,500,000 liters). That’s a lot of water. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coffee#Ecological_effects https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coffee#Ecological_effects
dicroce 5y ago
at least we'll have coffee when climate change roasts us.
ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago
As a hardcore coffee addict, this makes me happy. I wonder if some major corporation (I think we know the one that comes to mind) will find a way to corner the species, and act as a licensing gatekeeper...
- CoastalCoder 5y ago
  Oracle?
soniman 5y ago
Articles like this are probably planted by an industry group. The article mentions that the species was never lost because samples are held in labs, so there really isn't any news content here. What is probably going on is that coffee prices have been in a long term slump, producers are barely making money on arabica beans, and they want to introduce a cheaper variety that isn't low-margin robusta in order to survive as the low prices persist.
- alexpetralia 5y ago
  A slump until the last year it seems: https://m.investing.com/commodities/us-coffee-c-historical-data https://m.investing.com/commodities/us-coffee-c-historical-d...
  - soniman 5y ago
    https://www.macrotrends.net/2535/coffee-prices-historical-chart-data https://www.macrotrends.net/2535/coffee-prices-historical-ch...
- cmrdporcupine 5y ago
  Nah it's buzz generated out of some research from some botanists. The species itself was mostly lost in the wild and no longer cultivated as a crop because it wasn't economical at the time -- samples in labs is something else entirely. The spin that the media is putting on it is a bit weird, but as a person who breeds grapes and is a botanical geek, I'm used to seeing strange press distortions of these kinds of things. My understanding is that this species is not a cheaper producer at all. While it grows in hotter climates it producers lower volume and is harder to pick. Its value will be in breeding. Probably hybridizing with arabica.
  - HaggardFinical 5y ago
    Your last paragraph is on point. James Hoffmann made a video about this (link at the top of this thread) featuring the researchers and basically this is exactly what they said as well.
  - 5y ago
hourislate 5y ago
This is one of the main reasons I won't be able to go to Mars. Unless they can bring coffee on regular resupply missions, I'm stuck on this planet forever.
dukeofdoom 5y ago
Best coffee I had was local coffee in Hawaii, which is like 27 degree celsius everyday, and low of 16. So a very small temperature swings.
mullikine 5y ago
The main takeaway from this is that the future of our species is secure once again

263 points by throw0101a 5y ago

Coffea stenophylla: > Coffea affinis and C. stenophylla may possess useful traits for coffee crop plant development, including taste differentiation, disease resistance, and climate resilience. These attributes would be best accessed via breeding programs, although the species may have niche-market potential via minimal domestication. * https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpls.2020.00616/full https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpls.2020.00616...

axaxs 5y ago

I wonder why they made no mention of Liberica, which is currently grown in very hot climates? I'd be interested in how they compare.

cratermoon 5y ago
Good question. A quick search suggests that right now it's not widely grown, less than 1% of all coffee grown, and the flavor profile – sweeter and fruitier – is not popular with the coffee world. It's also said to be less productive than arabica and robusta.
- axaxs 5y ago
  Perhaps if you drink it lightly roasted? I had some made in Batangas and it was dark roasted, and tasted like your typical dark roast of anything else...to me.

andrewxdiamond 5y ago

A hacker news favorite, James Hoffmann, got the opportunity to taste this lost coffee about a month ago. As typical with a James video, it’s high quality and worth a watch. https://youtu.be/iGL7LtgC_0I https://youtu.be/iGL7LtgC_0I

phnofive 5y ago
TL;DW: it's got a clean, sweet, mildly acidic flavor.
- pedroma 5y ago
  Maybe this is the joke, but it seems he says that every video.
  - qbasic_forever 5y ago
    Not in the videos where he tastes 50 year old coffee beans someone found in their attic. :)
    - mths 5y ago
      Aged coffee is a thing. I tried something in the 10-15yo range once, and for a dark roast it wasn't bad.
      - Stratoscope 5y ago
        Was this coffee that was roasted and then aged for that long? That doesn't sound good. I have gotten some nice aged coffees, an aged Sumatra and a monsooned Malabar (they age it in a warehouse open to the monsoon wind and moisture). But these were aged while green and I roasted them fresh. I wonder if what you got was something more like that, aged green and then roasted after aging?
        belval 5y ago
        A dark roast that is aged would taste bland. Usually darker roast = faster degradation.
        klyrs 5y ago
        A good dark roast is often oily, so they tend to go rancid in a span of months unless hermetically sealed

bioinformatics 5y ago

So, was it warmer before?

cmrdporcupine 5y ago
Maybe try reading the article.
mackal 5y ago
I don't think it was in the article, but apparently it has a lower yield and smaller berries. So basically economics caused it to stop being commercially cultivated.

re 5y ago

Lake Street Dive released a song last year that touched on the impact of climate change on coffee, among other things. One of my favorite songs of the year, though it doesn't make me feel great. > To the next generation, / Merry Christmas / You're working harder than ever now / And the coffee sucks / You know, Colombia and Kenya got too damn hot / And now you're making do with what you got https://smarturl.it/makingdo https://smarturl.it/makingdo

Udik 5y ago
And the news are yet another proof that many of the climate change doom scenarios start from the assumption of a perfectly static world incapable of change or adaptation. This coffee species seems to taste even better than the one we use now (and yet the production with the current plant, far from decreasing because of climate change, has in fact grown 60% in the last 20 years).

selfsimilar 5y ago

Slightly OT but is there a resource to find local coffee alternatives – plants that produce caffeine or other mild stimulants – to try to reduce one’s shipping/carbon footprint? I found it difficult to even know what local alternatives there are. For reference I’m in the US midwest, but I’m curious about how one finds local alternatives that are not one-to-one more generally.

WaxProlix 5y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caffeine#Natural_occurrence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caffeine#Natural_occurrence Not sure what they're referring to by unrelated plants in 'temperate climates', which I suspect parts of the midwest might be generously described as. I bet you could grow some of the linked items in a garden or smallish greenhouse, though.
hundreddaysoff 5y ago
How about chicory? It's naturalized to the US. Easy to grow perennial with pretty flowers that would look great in the garden.
- WaxProlix 5y ago
  Afaik there is no caffeine in chicory, if that's a meaningful discriminator.
SECProto 5y ago
In terms of carbon footprint, coffee (as a low gram-per-serving product) is probably low. For example, I consume ~200g/week of coffee (10kg/yr), all of which would be shipped in 25kg bags from the producing locale to my local roastery. The shipping carbon impact would likely be easily offset by a single consumer item purchased from overseas
- maddyboo 5y ago
  Water usage may be a larger concern than shipping. From Wikipedia: > Coffee production use a large volume of water. On average it takes about 140 liters (37 U.S. gal) of water to grow the coffee beans needed to produce one cup of coffee, producing 1 kg (2.2 lb) of roasted coffee in Africa, South America or Asia requires 26,400 liters (7,000 U.S. gal) of water. Coffee is often grown in countries where there is a water shortage, such as Ethiopia. So, assuming those numbers are accurate, your 10kg year of coffee required 264,000 liters of water, or just over 10% the volume of an Olympic swimming pool (2,500,000 liters). That’s a lot of water. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coffee#Ecological_effects https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coffee#Ecological_effects

dicroce 5y ago

at least we'll have coffee when climate change roasts us.

ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago

As a hardcore coffee addict, this makes me happy. I wonder if some major corporation (I think we know the one that comes to mind) will find a way to corner the species, and act as a licensing gatekeeper...

CoastalCoder 5y ago
Oracle?

soniman 5y ago

Articles like this are probably planted by an industry group. The article mentions that the species was never lost because samples are held in labs, so there really isn't any news content here. What is probably going on is that coffee prices have been in a long term slump, producers are barely making money on arabica beans, and they want to introduce a cheaper variety that isn't low-margin robusta in order to survive as the low prices persist.

alexpetralia 5y ago
A slump until the last year it seems: https://m.investing.com/commodities/us-coffee-c-historical-data https://m.investing.com/commodities/us-coffee-c-historical-d...
- soniman 5y ago
  https://www.macrotrends.net/2535/coffee-prices-historical-chart-data https://www.macrotrends.net/2535/coffee-prices-historical-ch...
cmrdporcupine 5y ago
Nah it's buzz generated out of some research from some botanists. The species itself was mostly lost in the wild and no longer cultivated as a crop because it wasn't economical at the time -- samples in labs is something else entirely. The spin that the media is putting on it is a bit weird, but as a person who breeds grapes and is a botanical geek, I'm used to seeing strange press distortions of these kinds of things. My understanding is that this species is not a cheaper producer at all. While it grows in hotter climates it producers lower volume and is harder to pick. Its value will be in breeding. Probably hybridizing with arabica.
- HaggardFinical 5y ago
  Your last paragraph is on point. James Hoffmann made a video about this (link at the top of this thread) featuring the researchers and basically this is exactly what they said as well.
- 5y ago

hourislate 5y ago

This is one of the main reasons I won't be able to go to Mars. Unless they can bring coffee on regular resupply missions, I'm stuck on this planet forever.

dukeofdoom 5y ago

Best coffee I had was local coffee in Hawaii, which is like 27 degree celsius everyday, and low of 16. So a very small temperature swings.

mullikine 5y ago

The main takeaway from this is that the future of our species is secure once again