Climate robust coffee
That cup of coffee you drank this morning, it was likely made from Arabica coffee beans. However, the Arabica coffee plant is a bit delicate. It likes gentle temperatures and is disease sensitive. The expectation is that due to climate change its production decreases with 80%. But don’t worry, there is an alternative, the Robusta, that is what an international group of researchers is telling us.
A lot of coffee fanatics see coffee made from Robusta coffee beans as inferior to coffee from Arabica beans. It is possible that this might be due to the large genetic variation that is seen between Robusta coffee plants. There appeared to be larger differences between these than between those of Arabica coffee plants.
For their study the researchers analysed the yield and the taste of coffee beans of 27 Arabica and 27 Robusta coffee varieties. This they did over five years in three different regions of Brazil.
The variation between the Robusta varieties is both a curse and a blessing
Each species had its own regio in which it best performed. But in general the yield of Robusta coffee plants was larger than those of Arabica coffee plants. Although the differences in yield between the Robusta varieties was greater that between the Arabica varieties.
When turning to taste, the researchers noticed that the general appreciation was higher for the Arabica beans than for the Robusta beans. But also here there was a large variation between the different Robusta varieties. There were even three variations that qua taste could compete with that of Arabica beans.
Also other traits important for the coffee farmer, like disease resistance, show lots of variation between the varieties. This variation between the different Robusta varieties is both a curse and a blessing. A curse because at the moment there is still too much variation of the taste of the beans for nice cups of coffee.
But the variation also enables the breeding for varieties which give under changing climate conditions better tasting bean as well as a higher yield than the current Arabica varieties.
Literature
Ferrão, M. A. G., Riva-Souza, E. M., Azevedo, C., Volpi, P. S., Fonseca, A. F. A., Ferrão, R. G., Montagnon, C., & Ferrão, L. F. V. (2024). Robust and smart: Inference on phenotypic plasticity of Coffea canephora reveals adaptation to alternative environments. Crop Science, 1–16. https://doi.org/10.1002/csc2.21298
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