Future-proof coffee? Scientists rediscover rare ‘climate resilient’ bean
- As global warming threatens the popular arabica crops, the heat-resistant Stenophylla species could provide a key alternative
- Unlike the more bitter robusta beans, this West African variety is said to be ‘clean, sweet-tasting’
As experts warn that climate change could threaten the future of coffee bean production, London researchers say they have found a future-proof way to make it.
Stenophylla coffee, a rare wild species from upper West Africa, has been found to tolerate much higher temperatures than arabica, the world’s most popular coffee.
The qualities mean that stenophylla could soon be grown commercially and could be used as a breeding resource to produce new, “climate resilient” coffee crops for global consumption.
Currently, experts had not identified a way of protecting coffee farming from the climate crisis.
Details of the coffee species have been published in a paper on Monday from researchers at the Royal Botanic Gardens in London, the University of Greenwich in London, CIRAD (the French Agricultural Research Centre for International Development) and Sierra Leone.