How to Filter Your Coffee
You can buy great coffee, store it correctly, roast to perfection and still end up with a cup of coffee that is not to your liking. How is that? It has to do with the quality of the water that you use and how you filter your coffee. Using bottled or filtered water will generally take care of the water quality issue. But how to filter your coffee can be a more involved issue. What kind of filter you use determines if you remove oils that provide flavor but also may create health issues.
Optimal Coffee Brewing Temperature
To get the best aroma and flavor you should be buying arabica coffee from places like Colombia. Store correctly and only grind enough coffee for what you will brew. Water temperature is important as water that is too cool will not extract the flavors of your coffee. Water that is too hot will destroy some of those flavors. The ideal brewing temperature is between eighty-two and ninety-two degree Celsius which is one hundred eighty degrees to one hundred ninety-seven degrees Fahrenheit. For pour over coffee boil the water and let stand until the temperature falls sufficiently.
Why Filter Your Coffee?
Brewing coffee is based on pour over, immersion, pressure, or a combination of these. A good reason to filter your coffee is that you then remove both cafestol and kahweol coffee oils. These are diterpene compounds that can raise your cholesterol. Filtered coffee generally contains about one part in thirty of these compounds compared to unfiltered coffee. Using a simple cloth filter for pour over coffee eliminates any hit of paper taste from that kind of filter and lets more oils through for more flavor. More complicated metal and plastic filters are generally designed to get the coffee away from the grounds quickly to avoid over brewing. Paper filters are handy because they can be easily disposed of along with the used grounds. They are also the most effective for screening out all of the grounds as well as a majority of oils.
Filtering Coffee With a French Press
If you want more of the taste and aroma that comes with not removing so much of the oils and grounds from your coffee you probably want to use a French press. With this method make sure that you only use a coarse grind and a pot that exactly fits the amount of coffee that you are going to brew. Ideally preheat your pot and add only about a sixth of the water and your ground coffee. Stir for about fifteen seconds and then add the rest of your water. The wait four minutes as the coffee extracts into the water before pushing down on the plunger of the French press. To avoid over extraction pour your coffee immediately and enjoy.
Paper Coffee Filters
This is the idea way to avoid having too much oil with your coffee as well as unwanted grounds. Coffee filters are convenient but make sure you use the right size for your brewing method. Ideally soak your filter in boiling water and discard excess liquid before using it to filter your coffee. For the pour over method use two tsp of grounds and place in the filter before pouring the water. Do so slowly, for thirty seconds. For coffee percolators follow the direction on the packaging for amount of coffee grounds and water.
How to Make Gourmet Coffee
If you like great coffee you probably buy gourmet coffee. Gourmet coffee is that which has been grown under exacting conditions, picked at the peak of perfection. Gourmet coffee starts with the highest quality coffee beans such as arabica coffee from Colombia. Gourmet coffee is processed in small batches in order to preserve its excellence. All of this having been said, it is important to know how to make gourmet coffee when you make coffee at home. In other words, don’t spoil all of that effort that went into creating high quality coffee by messing up your storage, roasting, grinding, or brewing!
Taking Care of Your Gourmet Coffee
The flavor and aroma of great coffee does not last forever. Over time oxidation (exposure to air) degrades the chemicals that create the best aroma and flavor. If you buy green coffee beans they will retain their freshness for up to three years providing that it is stored properly. Green coffee beans need to be stored in a dark, cool, and dry location. That means no direct sunlight, on shelves and not on the ground, away from strong smells, and away from sources of humidity. It may be convenient to put your coffee in the cupboard right above your stove but that is a really bad idea!
If you buy roasted whole bean gourmet coffee the beans will retain their freshness for up to six months when properly stored. The same “rules” apply to storing roasted coffee beans as to green coffee beans.
Ideally you should store your coffee in a ceramic or dark glass canister and never freeze it. The problem with freezing is that when the coffee thaws it tends to absorb moisture. Each time you take coffee out of the freezer to brew you will degrade your gourmet coffee a bit more.
When to Grind Gourmet Coffee Beans
No matter whether you roast your own coffee at home or purchase roasted gourmet coffee beans, only grind enough coffee to use for one preparation or at least only enough for the day. Oxidation happens much faster when air is in contact with all of the interior of your coffee beans than when air has to penetrate the intact beans. Basically, you start to lose flavor and aroma as soon as you grind your coffee. You also start to lose the valuable antioxidants that confer so many health benefits as well!
Brewing Gourmet Coffee
After you have expended the effort to get, preserve, and grind your gourmet coffee don’t mess it up by using water that is impure, heavily chlorinated, or otherwise likely to impart unwelcome flavors to the final brew. Use filtered water and heat it to at least 195 degrees Fahrenheit but not more than 250 degrees Fahrenheit. Ideally you should purchase a scale for accurate measurement of how much coffee to use with each brewing. As a starting point measure out 90 grams of coffee for a standard coffee maker and then adjust the amount for taste in subsequent efforts.
Choose Your Method For Brewing Gourmet Coffee
We have written about making coffee with a French press versus pour over coffee versus using a percolator. Assuming the same ingredients, a percolator will give you milder coffee while a French press results in a darker, stronger flavor. The pour over route tends to end up with something in between. No matter which method you choose, it is important to clean your equipment after each use. Oil collects in a coffee pot if it is not washed. Mold and bacteria can accumulate in a percolator that is not routinely cleaned. Do not go to the expense and trouble to make great gourmet coffee and then ruin it by neglecting to clean your equipment routinely!
Coffee and Your Mental Health
Drinking coffee can help you keep your focus when you are tired. Drinking coffee can also make you feel nervous or jittery if you drink too much. However, there are a lot more effects of coffee on your brain and how it functions. What are ways in which coffee and your mental health are related? Some of the effects of coffee have to do with its caffeine content. Others appear to be related to the many healthy antioxidants found in coffee.
Coffee, Caffeine, and Your Mental Health
Caffeine from coffee confers alertness, a sense of well-being, and energy, especially when we would otherwise feel tired. It is the world’s go-to wake me up and keep me awake drink. And when we drink too much (which varies from person to person) we have trouble sleeping and feel jittery. If one’s coffee consumption is high enough there is a withdrawal effect of cutting back consisting of more irritability and headaches. When students drink coffee there is good evidence that it helps consolidate learning. All of this applies to consumption of coffee in normal amounts. When coffee is ingested in toxic levels individuals with schizophrenia experience worsened symptoms and others can also experience psychotic symptoms as well as symptoms of ADHD. There is no evidence that coffee consumption in the normal range has any long term detrimental effects of mental health. On the contrary, it can have significant benefits in some cases.
Coffee and Reduction of Incidence of Alzheimer’s Disease
Long term observational studies of humans indicate that people who drink coffee have a lower risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease. This is a degenerative condition of the brain that appears to be related to long term effects of inflammation. It has been suggested that the antioxidants in coffee are responsible for coffee’s benefit in reducing the incidence of Alzheimer’s. Interestingly, a study done on rats used one of the antioxidants in coffee, eicosanoyl-5-hydroxytryptamide, in treating rats and found that it helped prevent the rat version of Alzheimer’s! In humans, those who report higher coffee consumption up to six cups a day also turn out to have a lower rate of Alzheimer’s than those who drank only a cup or so each day.
Coffee for Treatment of Depression
We generally think of coffee as a stimulant to keep normal people awake and alert late in the day or while driving at night. Coffee is not generally considered a treatment for depression but that may not be entirely correct. Doctors in Japan evaluated 1992 women in nursing home for caffeine intake and depression. They found that increased amounts of caffeine intake from coffee, tea, or caffeine pills all were related to lower levels of depression in women aged 65 to 94 years. This was a cross-sectional study of symptoms and behavior. The authors suggest follow up studies in which caffeine is used for depressed individuals and in which caffeine and no caffeine groups are studied for depression over time in order to confirm their findings.
Interactions of Coffee and Medications
As we have noted, the caffeine in coffee can make you jittery and nervous. It can even raise your blood pressure. These potential effects can be controlled by reducing coffee intake or going with decaf. However, if a person is taking some medications such as thyroid pills, the effects of caffeine add to the effects of the thyroid medicine and can make coffee more of a problem. Too much thyroid medicine can raise blood pressure and make a person jittery as can too much caffeine. These effects are additive in sensitive individuals. Thus, individuals taking thyroid pills should modify their coffee intake and intake of caffeine from other sources accordingly.
Is It Organic Coffee?
If you love great coffee you want coffee that is free of impurities. If you love the environment you want coffee that is sustainably grown. If you love great coffee you probably want organic coffee. So, is it organic coffee? Organic coffee is coffee that is free from as many as 150 impurities that have been discovered in regular coffee. Organic applies to roughly three 3% of all coffee produced commercially. You know that coffee is organic when it has the USDA organic seal on the container. However, there is a lot of coffee that is not certified but nevertheless organic!
Organic Versus Regular Coffee
There are two basic things that make organic coffee different from regular coffee. The first is what it lacks. Organic coffee grow and processed under strict conditions does not contain residues of synthetic fertilizers, insecticides, herbicides, fungicides, or a whole host of other unwanted ingredients. Organic coffee is grown under special conditions and processed separately from regular coffees. The second part is that organic coffee is generally excellent coffee of gourmet quality. Coffee farmers do not go to the trouble and expense of growing and processing low quality coffee to get an organic product. However, organic coffee does not have any more or less caffeine than similar coffee that is not produced by organic means. In general, the same coffee variety produced by non-organic processes does not necessarily have any fewer antioxidants, worse flavor, or inferior aroma just because it is not certified as organic.
Organic Coffee Certification
How do you know that your coffee is organic? You know because it says so on the bag of coffee you are purchasing. In the USDA the certifying authority is the Department of Agriculture. As noted by the Organic Trade Association, organic standards include growing and processing without using synthetic or toxic fertilizers, pesticides, antibiotics, genetic engineering, artificial flavors, synthetic growth hormones, preservatives, colors, radiation, or sewage sludge.
In order to demonstrate that coffee is organic coffee farmers and others along the supply chain need to provide traceability from the coffee farm itself to the cup of coffee on consumes. This is a multistep and rigorous process that is carried out by the USDA (United States Department of Agriculture) within the USA itself and by assigned proxies elsewhere across the globe. Because only Hawaii produces coffee in the USA the USDA outsources certification across the coffee belt to local authorities.
No matter who does the actual certification process on behalf of the USDA, certified organic coffee has the USDA organic seal.
Specifics of Organic Coffee Certification
As with most things in life, the truth is in the details. In regard to organic coffee, land has to be free of pesticides, herbicides, etc. for more than three years to be certified and to maintain organic certification. Furthermore, organic coffee cannot be produced right next to regular coffee. There needs to be a meaningful buffer or space between the two. This has be verified by the certifying agent. Processing and storage facilities also need to be physically separate for organic and regular coffee as well. The same applies to shipping.
Is Organic Coffee Expensive?
It costs more to produce organic coffee than a non-organic version of a comparable coffee of the same variety. The care and attention to growing organic coffee are comparable and often greater than for gourmet coffee that is not organic. Thus, it should not be surprising that organic coffee generally carries a premium price of at least fifty percent more than non-organic. Beyond that price differences have more to do with marketing than with quality.
Organic Coffee At the Best Price
The best coffee and the best organic coffee at the best price comes from the coffee growing district of Colombia. If you are interested in high quality coffee, organic or not, at reasonable prices, contact us at admin@buyorganiccoffee.org.
How Much Does Coffee Help Your Health?
We have known for years that coffee is good for your health. But how great are the benefits? It turns out that researchers have real numbers for us and those numbers tell give us a clear indication of the health benefits of coffee in regard specific diseases and health conditions. Specifically, how much does coffee help your health in terms of percentage reduction of specific health conditions and diseases?
Drinking Coffee and the Risk of Type II Diabetes
Diabetes is a disease in which a person’s blood sugar is elevated. This causes damage to blood vessels of the eyes, kidneys, nerves, heart and other organs over time. Type I diabetes is when a person does not produce enough insulin to control their blood sugar. Type II diabetes is when a person’s body becomes resistant to the effects of insulin. Type II is by far more common, occurs in adulthood, and is treated with pills instead of insulin shots. About a million and a half people die every year because of complications of diabetes. It is wonderful news that drinking three to four cups of coffee a day cuts the risk of getting Type II diabetes by 25%! Drinking coffee has been associated with pre-diabetic individuals returning to a state of normal blood sugars which fits the association of more coffee and less diabetes!
Drinking Coffee and the Risk of Heart Disease
We have also known for some time that coffee consumption is helpful in reducing heart disease risk. It turns out that the benefit is a ten to fifteen percent reduction in the risk of cardiovascular disease from drinking coffee. There is apparently a “U-shaped” benefit curve with the maximum benefit from reduction of risk of dying from heart disease at three cups a day. That risk benefit is a twenty-one percent less chance of death by heart disease. This risk reduction includes heart attacks and heart failure but not arrhythmias.
Drinking Coffee and Liver Disease
Research has indicated that drinking coffee can reduce one’s risk of hepatocellular cancer (liver cancer) as well as cirrhosis. Retrospective studies have shown that drinking two cups of coffee a day or more protects against virtually all forms of liver disease. These conditions include advanced cirrhosis, liver cancer and cirrhosis. This protective effect applies no matter what the cause of the liver disease. The benefits of drinking coffee increase as one consumes more, up to the four to six cups a day range.
The percentage reductions in liver diseases were significant across the board. The reduction in hepatocellular cancer risk ranges from thirty to eighty percent depending on the amount of coffee consumed per day up to six cups a day at which the benefit appears to level off.
Drinking Coffee and Risk of Parkinson’s Disease
Research has shown a reduction in the risk of developing Parkinson’s disease in coffee drinkers as well as those who drink other beverages containing caffeine. Parkinson’s disease is a degenerative neurological disease seen in older individuals. The risk of Parkinson’s was reduced by forty-two percent between men who drink the most coffee and those who drank no beverage with caffeine. In women the maximum benefit occurred at about three cups a day and fell off with both greater and lesser consumption. No one yet understands the male to female difference in this case. Nevertheless, there is a distinct and measurable benefit for caffeine consumption including drinking coffee in the prevention of Parkinson’s disease.
Will Good Intentions Kill the Coffee Industry?
In a perfect world all coffee would be totally organic, shade grown, bird friendly, and of gourmet quality. In the real world coffee farmers need to work with what they have to grow their crops. They need to deal with buyers who commonly do not want to pay higher prices than they have to in order to pad their profits as they pass coffee along the supply chain. Meanwhile, well intentioned individuals and organizations try to enforce strict regulations in order to accomplish an ideal such as preventing deforestation by the coffee industry. Such is the case with the EU deforestation-free supply chain law (EUDR). Although the intentions behind the law are good the end result might not be. Will good intentions kill the coffee industry in this case?
What is the EUDR Law?
The European Regulation on deforestation free products is meant to protect global forests from deforestation. It prohibits businesses from selling products in European Union markets unless they are “proven” to be deforestation-free and produced legally. Additionally, such products will be banned from export from the European Union. A recent estimate of the total cost of compliance with this law is between $170 million and $250 million in US dollars.
For this plan to work, companies will need to do their due diligence and produce reports regarding the products involved, their origin, and proof of lack of deforestation, existing land claims, presence or absence of indigenous communities, and more.
For this plan to work companies will need do their due diligence and produce reports regarding the products involved, their origin, and proof of lack of deforestation, existing land claims, presence or absence of indigenous communities, and more.
Problems With the EUDR Law
An issue with the well intentioned EUDR law is similar to something we have written about in regard to small coffee farmers maintaining certification for organic coffee. It costs money and takes times to get certified. As a practical matter the coffee farmers who seek certification need to make enough extra money selling their coffee to make the process worthwhile. The same is very likely to be true with small coffee operations across the world
What Will Be the Results of the EUDR Law?
In all likelihood the EUDR law will result in deforestation not being an issue with coffee sold in the European Union. It will also likely result in having only coffee from large international suppliers being available to European buyers as smaller operations will not be able to deal with the costs of compliance. To a degree this will reduce the variety of coffee available in the EU and result in a lot of excellent coffee going to local consumption instead of export.
Organic or Deforestation Free Coffee in Fact if Not in Name
What we expect to see with the EU law is that the EU will reduce the amount and variety of coffee that it can import and sell locally. Meanwhile there will be a lot of coffee that cannot get into the EU because it is deforestation free just like being truly organic but not certified as such. To the extent that the process reduces deforestation it will be a good thing overall. However, it threatens to consolidate the global coffee industry because only large, global companies will be able to comply and smaller companies as well as small family coffee farmers will be excluded.
Shade Grown Coffee and Coffee Diversity
The EUDR law has to do with preventing deforestation. Another argument could be made that by keeping trees on coffee farms we end up with more shade grown coffee. Studies have shown that in Latin America coffee species diversity increases on farms where coffee is grown in the shade. Thus, in theory, the EUDR law might help coffee diversity in Latin America. However, because so many small coffee growers will be unable to take advantage of this law to sell their coffee to European companies.
Is It Dark Roast or Burnt Coffee?
Do you drink a strong, dark roast coffee? Much of what one finds at the grocery store falls into this category. The problems with a strong, dark roast are that one loses most of the flavor of a good coffee and also serves to disguise low quality coffee. So, is it dark roast or burnt coffee that you are buying at the supermarket? If you like a darker roast but also good coffee, what do you look for?
Why Do We Roast Coffee?
Green coffee beans can remain reasonably fresh for up to three years when properly stored. However, green beans smell a bit like wet grass and are spongy when bitten into. But when we roast coffee beans a series of chemical changes occur that result in the flavors and aromas that we associate with coffee. Although there are several terms used to describe the degree of roasting, they generally fall into four categories, light, medium, medium-dark, and dark. Light roasting is the least time spent and dark roasting is the most time spent on the process.
How Does Roasting Affect Flavor and Aroma of Coffee?
If you have coffee beans with milder flavor you probably want a light roast as it brings out subtle flavors that are not overwhelmed by the bitterness that comes with more roasting. If you are buying gourmet coffee this is a good place to start when you are doing your own roasting. When you go to a medium roast you get a stronger flavor at the expense of losing some of the subtlety of a light roast. This trend continues into dark-medium and dark roasts. On the darker end of the roast spectrum coffee beans caramelize as other flavors disappear. Here is where it can become difficult or impossible to distinguish between a great coffee and a poor coffee due the each being essentially burned.
Will We Be Seeing More Burnt Dark Roast Coffee in the Future?
Great coffee or gourmet coffee is the ideal for anyone who loves coffee. However, gourmet coffee is generally a lot more expensive than average coffee. One place in the world where this rule does not always apply is in Colombia where uniformly excellent arabica coffee at reasonable prices is in ample supply. When you buy a great arabica from Colombia you really do not want to use an excessively dark roast or you will be losing the fantastic flavor and aroma that this coffee brings to your cup. Sadly, the world is changing. The coffee business is competitive and it can be difficult to grow great coffee, organic coffee and make a living. As such there is always pressure on the coffee grower to cut corners, grow robusta instead of arabica, and end up with a coffee of lower quality. This trend is likely to hastened by steady warming of the climate and loss of land suitable for growing arabica coffees, even those cross bred strains that are more resistant to things like coffee leaf rust.
Roasting Your Own Coffee
One way around drinking excessively dark roast, burnt coffee is to buy green coffee beans and roast your own. To do this it works best to find a small coffee roaster near you. Buy enough green coffee for a few weeks or a month, roast only enough for the day, and use this strategy to enjoy a variety of coffees as well!
What Drives the Price Difference Between Arabica and Robusta?
Arabica coffee costs more per pound than robusta coffee. The price difference over the years has varied from arabica being a fourth more expensive to being more than twice as expensive. What drives the price difference between arabica and robusta? Can we expect to see the price difference increase or decrease over the next years and decades?
How Much Does the Arabica to Robusta Price Difference Vary?
Statista provides a price comparison of average prices for arabica and robusta over several years. The price variation from 25% to more than 200% comes from 2014 to projected 2025 numbers.
Arabica always commands a higher price than robusta because it reliably has better flavor and aroma. The price of robusta tends not to fluctuate all that much while the supply of arabica can drive prices up when there is a shortage and down when there is excess production. What we have seen over the years has generally been simply seasonal variation in arabica. However, with the climate warming year after year, we expect to see arabica production limited to higher and higher altitudes and shrinking as available land becomes limited.
Will Arabica and Robusta End Up Being the Same?
We have written a lot about how countries like Colombia have created strains of arabica that are more resistant to diseases like coffee leaf rust while retaining the superior flavor and aroma seen with arabica. Something similar is happening in the world of robusta coffee. Growers, especially in Asia but also Central and South America, are cross breeding robusta strains with arabica strains in an attempt to produce “specialty” robusta which will command higher prices that standard robusta. Indonesia is in the process of developing a robusta grading system similar to those used for arabica in order to facilitate a market for higher quality robusta. Thus arabica producers in search of hardier arabica strains and robusta producers looking for higher quality without losing hardiness may well meet in the middle with the result being either a great tasting robusta equal to a hardier arabica! These efforts could, potentially, lead to a single variety of coffee instead of the two that dominate commercial coffee production today.
What Will Happen With the Arabica to Robusta Price Difference?
If the current arabica and robusta coffees continue to maintain their respective qualities, we expect to see lower arabica production over time to a greater extent than any reduction in robusta output. This would cause a greater price differential between the two. To the extent that attempts to cross breed robusta and arabica varieties succeed, that will end up reducing the differences between these varieties of coffee and, consequently, the price difference as well.
Will We See More Caffeine in Our Arabica or More Flavor in Our Robusta?
In today’s world of coffee, we have two basic choices, cheaper coffee with more caffeine and less flavor versus more expensive coffee with more flavor and less caffeine. If plant breeder in Asia or the Americas succeed in their efforts, coffee lovers may find that in the years to come they do not need to give up their caffeine if they switch to arabica and that they will not need to pay a premium for better flavor because there will be a middle ground where arabica to robusta hybrids provide the best of both worlds of coffee!
How Does La Niña Affect Coffee Production?
The El Niño weather phenomenon which changed weather patterns around the Pacific Ocean and across the world has abated. According to the United States Climate Predicition Center, currents in the Pacific are likely to convert to a pattern called La Niña by August of 2024. How does La Niña affect coffee production? The effects of La Niña on the biggest coffee producing regions of Brazil, Vietnam, and the Central America to Colombia corridor will be somewhat different.
What Is La Niña?
La niña is Spanish for little girl as opposed to little boy which is what el niño means. El niño is used to describe a weather pattern that commonly begins around Christmas and therefore refers to the birth of Jesus of Nazareth. La niña is simply a designation for the opposite weather pattern. El Niño is when the trade winds that typically blow from East to West across the Pacific at the equator weaken. This causes warmer water to be pushed back against the west coast of the Americas and for the jet stream to move south from it usual location. The result is dryer weather in South America and north and west North America while south and east of North America get torrential rains and snow. Weather patterns are typically energized making storms more ferocious.
When trade winds strengthen again across the equator in the Pacific and even become stronger the La Niña weather pattern is that the jet stream moves north and warm water is pushed toward Asia. This typically leads to a more energetic hurricane season, torrential rains in the north and west of North America and droughts in south and east. In South America La Niña can cause severe droughts in Brazil and Argentina and dryer conditions farther north turning to heavier rain across the northern amazon and moderately more rain in the Colombian coffee growing region in the west of the Andes and up into Central America. Across the Pacific in the world biggest producer of robusta coffee, Vietnam is likely to see torrential rains for the duration of the La Niña weather event.
Will the El Niño La Niña Patterns Become More Common?
The weather pattern reversals of El Niño to La Niña and back occur roughly every two to seven years but never have settled in to a more regular pattern. La Niña commonly lasts a few months to a couple of years while El Niño can go on for six to eight years. There is some speculation that a generally warmer climate will cause these events to not only become fiercer but to make them switch back and forth more rapidly. What that means for agriculture and the coffee industry in particular will possible lead to rapid switching between droughts and floods with little time for more moderate weather patterns. If that it the case production will be damaged on both ends of the scale and prices will rise.
La Niña Effects on Colombia
The likely effects of La Niña on Colombia will differ between the south and east versus the west and north. Amazonia will see heavier rains while the western and northern Andes will see a moderate increase. Because the huge ranges of elevation in the mountains micro climates will also moderate or worsen these effects. For the coffee crop, heavier rains will help alleviate the effects of greater heat. However, with heat and humidity come greater risks of coffee plant diseases like leaf rust. Because coffee is traditionally planted on slopes the plants will not drown. However, in the Cauca Valley bread basket where so much of Colombia’s vegetable and other food stuffs are grown excessive rain and floods may, in fact, threaten the food supply. Colombia’s President Petro has warned of this being a climate emergency.
The bottom line for the coffee crop is that production may be diminished which, along with problems in other arabica producing regions will probably lead to higher prices for good coffee.
How Old Is Arabica Coffee?
When we ask how old is arabica coffee we are not talking about stale coffee that has lost all of its antioxidant properties. Rather we are asking how far back in time the arabica coffee variety came to be. In regard to people drinking arabica coffee we know that coffee was first consumed by humans in what is today Ethiopia nearly a thousand years ago. Arabica coffee crossed over to what is today Yemen on the Arabian Peninsula and from there spread across the world. Evidence of when arabica coffee came to be by natural cross breeding so long ago comes from a study just published about a newly sequenced genome by the University of Buffalo.
When Was the First Arabica Coffee?
Long, long before anyone ever contemplated drinking coffee and even before modern humans walked on the earth there were arabica coffee plants. A breeding and genetics study just completed and reported date the first arabica to about 600,000 years ago. What the scientists tell us is that in what is today Ethiopia natural cross pollination between coffee plants in the wild resulted in a relatively stable coffee plant that has retained its genetic makeup for a very long time.
Why Study the Genetics of Arabica Coffee?
The research that produced an estimate of arabica coffee being more than half a million years old did not just get done because it is an interesting topic. Nestle and other big actors in the coffee world are concerned about how high quality arabica coffee will survive as the world’s climate heats up. They want more detailed genetic information about high quality arabica coffee in order to guide research into more resistant and hardier varieties that retain the current quality of a good cup of arabica, organic or not.
Arabica Is a Climate Change Survivor
One of the things that scientists want to study is now arabica coffee maintained a relatively stable genetic makeup ever since it was naturally created so long ago. Over the last 600,000 years the earth has seen ice ages in which temperatures were much lower. However, roughly 60,000 years ago it was about as hot globally as it is today after human activity has heated up the planet. What the genetic record with arabica coffee tells us is that this coffee variety has remained roughly the same throughout temperature ups and downs. What we do not know for sure is how many arabica plants there were during the times of greatest climate stress and how may during ideal climate conditions. What coffee scientists would like to know is how to preserve arabica production in the coming years and if newer genetic information will help in that regard. The recent evidence seems to tell us that arabica is a climate change survivor.
Can Arabica Characteristics Be Genetically Transferred to Robusta?
What makes arabica different genetically is what is called polyploidy which is multiple copies of many of its chromosomes. While this may make arabica a variety that does not change much over time it may be a hindrance to direct genetic manipulation in search of greater hardiness combined by great flavor and aroma. What that may well mean is that the best ways to maintain and improve arabica strains is what scientists have been doing for generations, cross breeding and picking the offspring with the best results to create newer, stronger, and great tasting coffees.