Discovery may spell change for coffee industry

A rare species of coffee rediscovered in the wild after decades could secure the future of great-tasting brews in the face of climate change, scientists said.

According to tasting by independent experts, the enigmatic narrowleaved coffee (Coffea stenophylla) from West Africa has a flavour similar to high-end Arabica, the world’s most popular coffee which is at risk from climate change.

But stenophylla tolerates much higher temperatures than Arabica, and as the world warms, it could help farmers whose livelihoods depend on supplying high-quality coffee for the multibillion-pound global industry.

It could be grown commercially in much warmer places than Arabica and be used as a breeding resource to produce new, climateresilient crops to meet world demand.

But action is needed to safeguard the species in the wild, where it is threatened with extinction, and in other sites and evaluate its full potential, the scientists said.

Researchers from the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Greenwich University, Cirad (the French Agricultural Research Centre for International Development) and Sierra Leone, have published the results of a study into the stenophylla species in the journal Nature Plants.

Coffee is under threat from climate change, which is pushing up temperatures, causing rainfall to decline or become increasingly erratic, and helping diseases spread.

Arabica coffee currently accounts for more than half (56%) of global production of the beverage, but it originates from the highlands of Ethiopia and South Sudan in the wild and grows in cool tropical conditions.