| If there is no coffee |
If one day someone tells you that we can't eat avocados, mangoes and kiwis anymore, you're more likely to shrug and say there's no way, we've got to pay for the warming. But if he says we won't have coffee anymore, you're probably going to be stuck. Coffee is so important to us that most people would not be able to accept it without it in their lives.
Don't be afraid, the coffee will not be cut off for a while. Benoit Bertrand, a geneticist at the French Agricultural International Cooperation Research and Development Center, made it clear: "To say that the challenges faced by coffee trees are more serious than other tree species is completely alarmist!" Nestlé's director of plant research Fabrizio Arrigoni also said: "In the short term, Arabica and Robusta coffee will not disappear." However, Arrigoni followed by: "But we also have to prepare in advance, because sooner or later climate change It will affect the production of coffee beans, it may be 2030, it may be 2050 or more, we must find a countermeasure before that."
Coffee trees, like other fruit trees, have a lifespan of more than ten years, and after planting Production was lower in previous years. There are as many as 124 species of coffee trees in the world, but only two are widely cultivated, namely Arabica (56%) and Robusta (43%), the remaining 1% is Liberica.
Arabica is a favorite of coffee lovers. It originates from the plateaus of Ethiopia and South Sudan. The suitable altitude for growing is between 1000 meters and 1200 meters. It likes a cool climate, and the ideal planting temperature is 18℃ to 22℃. Rising temperatures, or prolonged dry and rainy seasons, could be devastating for Arabica. Robusta originates from the lower altitude areas of Africa, prefers tropical humid climate, is resistant to high temperature, can withstand up to 30°C, and the ideal planting temperature is between 24°C and 26°C. Robusta is more productive and adaptable, but the taste of robusta beans is not as delicate as Arabica beans, and baristas rarely use robusta beans to make high-quality coffee.
| Three Ways to Save Coffee |
There are three ways to save coffee, the first is to find new high-altitude plantations. There are not many places with high altitudes and suitable climates, but in Ethiopia and Colombia, such places can still be found. Doing so, however, would lead to vicious competition among coffee plantations, and people working on low-altitude coffee plantations could even lose their jobs.
The second way is to use agricultural planting technology to increase coffee production, and use irrigation to alleviate drought is one way. Today, half of the world's arabica trees are harvested through intensive planting, specifically, the intensive use of fertilizers and pesticides during the planting process. The remaining half can be harvested, relying on mixed planting, that is, mixing coffee trees with mango trees, banana trees, cocoa trees and other trees. This can provide a good growth environment for coffee trees. For example, other tree species can be dwarf trees. The coffee trees provide shade and shelter from the wind and rain.
The third way is to improve coffee genes. All coffee species originate from the Ethiopian plateau in Africa, which results in insufficient genetic diversity. The reason why Arabica trees in Latin America are susceptible to coffee rust is that they suffer from a single gene. Selecting existing varieties for hybridization and grafting are both ways to improve genes. However, these methods are no longer working, says Delphine Mielle of the French Centre for International Cooperation in Research and Development in Agriculture. "For the Arabica and Robusta varieties, researchers have done everything they can, and they have reached a bottleneck." In fact, as early as ten years ago, researchers thought that people would one day be looking for new coffee varieties. Now, that day has come.
| Retrieving the Forgotten Narrowleaf Coffee |
The first to embark on a journey of discovery was British botanist Aaron Davies, a senior research fellow at Kew Gardens, Kew. In the past, in Sierra Leone, there was a narrow-leaf coffee that was even exported, but after 1920, it disappeared. Davies, with a cap on his head, has been searching for years in the rainforest of Sierra Leone in order to find the wild species of narrow-leaf coffee. Narrow-leaf coffee has three major advantages: first, drought tolerance; second, strong adaptability, can grow on the top of the mountain, but also in humid valleys; third, it has a certain resistance to coffee rust. Since he searched for several years without success, everyone thought that narrow-leaf coffee was extinct in Sierra Leone, but his hard work paid off. In 2018, he finally found a narrow-leaf coffee tree. At the same time, the French Agricultural International Cooperation Research and Development Center also took an interest in this coffee. In the early 20th century, French coffee shops also sold narrow-leaf coffee. The researchers at the center were fortunate that they didn't have to go deep into the rainforest to find samples, because several Ivorian narrow-leaf coffee trees are planted in the botanical gardens of the French island of Reunion.
1. British botanist Aaron Davies. 2. Narrow-leaf coffee was all the rage, but it disappeared in the 1920s. Since then, the plantation has stopped growing spruce coffee, leaving only a small number of wild spruce coffee trees growing in the rainforest. In 2018, Aaron Davis found a narrow-leaf coffee tree in Sierra Leone.
Mixed planting can provide a good growth environment for coffee trees, but it is also a knowledge of what trees to mix with, and researchers have been looking for a better combination.
Thanks to these coffee trees, in 2020, Mielle was able to convene 15 experts from companies such as Nestlé and Starbucks to taste narrow-leaf coffee together. The results were unexpectedly good, with 47% of the experts praising the unique taste of Antarctica, with aromas of rose and elderflower. You might argue that the future of coffee is finally secured, but any botanical conclusions will need to stand the test of time. Mielle said: "If the production of narrow-leaf coffee can stabilize in the next five years, it should be able to meet the needs of the niche market. If the production is not stable, we have to be patient and think of a way. Looking at the past data, it is true Opinions vary, some say this coffee is low-yielding, some say that it is high-yielding. The Antarctica coffee planted at an altitude of 400 meters above sea level in Reunion Island has good yields, but it is too early to draw conclusions and we have to study further.”
In addition, Narrowleaf coffee is also expected to be the savior of Arabica. Although the genetic differences between the narrow-leaf coffee and Arabica are too large to hybridize, if researchers can lock the drought-tolerant gene of narrow-leaf coffee, they can save the country by looking for varieties with the same gene to hybridize with Arabica.
But don't get too excited, narrow-leaf coffee itself is an endangered species. In Sierra Leone, Côte d'Ivoire and Guinea, there used to be many narrow-leaf coffee trees, but they are now hard to find, which Davis believes is caused by increased human activity and damage to the natural environment. He led a study that concluded that 60 percent of wild coffee tree species are endangered, and 13 percent of them are critically endangered. Even more worrying is that 30% of wild coffee species receive no protection whatsoever. In this way, it is indeed urgent to protect the genome of the coffee tree. This is not only to satisfy our taste buds, but also to keep the jobs of more than 100 million coffee practitioners.
World coffee list
85% of Arabica beans are produced in Latin America, of which Brazil ranks first in the world in terms of production and export. Asia is the producing area of Robusta beans, among which Vietnam ranks first in the world, but over-intensive planting has also led to soil degradation. Africa is the origin of coffee, and today, coffee beans produced in Africa are mainly exported.
