Seems like it’s probably worth recapping the whole new-species-will-save-your-morning-coffee-from-climate-change story that’s been going around.
It all started last year with a paper describing the re-discovery in the wilds of Sierra Leone of a species of coffee that used to be very well liked but then fell out of favour due to low yields. It’s called Coffea stenophylla1 and of course Jeremy did a podcast about it, interviewing one of the authors of said paper, the very engaging Prof. Jeremy Haggar.
Fast forward a year and we now have a follow-up paper assessing the taste of coffee made from beans C. stenophylla from that wild population in Sierra Leone and also from a CIRAD research stand in La Reunion. And guess what? It’s really good. So of course Jeremy went back to Prof. Haggar for another nice chat.
C. stenophylla grows in hot and humid lowlands, so it’s a little more ready for climate change than your average arabica. Still, the yield issue is presumably still there, and no doubt other problems will arise, as they always do. But I’m keeping my fingers crossed, because I really want to taste the stuff — and boost Sierra Leonean business along the way.
Oh and of course we’ll have to revise the global coffee diversity conservation strategy now…
There is only one entry in Genesys, from CATIE. [↩]