Coffea stenophylla: A forgotten bean that could save coffee from extinction

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/how-forgotten-bean-could-save-coffee-from-extinction-180986230/

by derbOac • 1 year ago

170 138 1 year ago

smithsonianmag.com

dbetteridge• 1 year ago

https://youtu.be/iGL7LtgC_0I?si=V8vXK4QzF_lAfRjB

James Hoffman did an interesting episode on this bean a few years ago, very cool the work being done.

ndsipa_pomu• 1 year ago

What puzzles me about the reported birth of coffee is that I wouldn't expect that just eating the cherries would give you that much of a caffeine kick to be noticeable. Yes, there's a little bit of caffeine in them, but far more in the "beans" (seeds).

loloquwowndueo• 1 year ago

We’re probably used to higher levels of caffeine now, but if we weren’t, maybe chewing the berries would give a noticeable boost.

Kinda like ok you can eat a poppy but then there’s a reason morphine exists. (Sorry for the stupid analogy ;)

zdragnar2• 1 year ago

Tea also has noticeably less caffeine than coffee, yet it has been treated as an energizing drink since it was first discovered.

When you don't have any adrenal stimulants in your diet at all, even a small amount is noticable.

Caffeine also has a metabolic half life of roughly 5 hours in the body, if I remember correctly. A few berries might not do much, but surely a handful will be enough.

jessekv2• 1 year ago

Tea leaves usually have more caffeine than coffee beans, but tea itself is usually more diluted than coffee.

If you want a jolt, make a matcha shot with the same mass of matcha as you would normally do for coffee ;)

Projectiboga• 1 year ago

Tea bushes use an entirely different metabolic pathway to produce caffeine than coffee bushes.

Here is an article that further describes how we believe caffeine synthesis evolved in multiple land plant lineages.

https://www.pnas.org/content/113/38/10613

Caffeine synthesis involves several enzymes, but the enzyme family (called the SABATH family) involved in the final stages of its synthesis can trace its origins back to the first land plants. These first enzymes are thought to have been very promiscuous (capable of having activity with several molecules), partially contributing to how caffeine synthesis managed to evolve independently multiple times throughout the evolutionary history of land plants.

hermitShell• 1 year ago

This is why I routinely wean myself from coffee by drinking tea on most holiday weekends. I feel it helps me to dissociate less while I should be present with family, plus when I return to work I have much less residual caffeine and can hit peak productivity, crank out some code. Props to devs who don’t rely on drugs!

iteria• 1 year ago

If you truly detox from caffeine even extremely small amounts will be noticeable. I knew a woman who couldn't eat chocolate because she found the amount of caffeine to be too high. I didn't even know there was caffeine in chocolate.

recursive5• 1 year ago

I knew a woman who couldn't eat chocolate because she found the amount of caffeine to be too high.

I think the causality went the other way in that case. I've been roughly caffeine free at certain intervals. Never felt anything from chocolate.

gruez• 1 year ago

If you truly detox from caffeine even extremely small amounts will be noticeable.

Maybe for a subset of people. Otherwise kids will be getting crazy jitters the first time they eat chocolate (presumably before they ever drank coffee/tea), which obviously doesn't happen.

pzs• 1 year ago

They call the cherries cascara, and I have come across them in some specialty coffee shops packaged just like the beans. You can pour hot (not boiling) water over them and prepare a tea-like infusion. It tastes sweet-ish without adding anything else. It gives a pretty noticeable kick to me when I drink it, even though I am a regular coffee drinker. I think it is worth a try, if you haven't done so yet.

inetknght5• 1 year ago

I wouldn't expect that just eating the cherries would give you that much of a caffeine kick to be noticeable

If you're paying attention to your body and you're not addicted to stimulants, then a small kick of caffeine would absolutely be noticeable.

djha-skin2• 1 year ago

Caffeine production is likely difficult in the face of a drier climate. Caffeine is present in the plant as a pesticide. Insects are a much bigger problem in wet climates over dry.

Having grown up in a wet climate (Chicago) but now living in a dry one (Utah) I can say that finding a droubt tolerant species which concerns itself with pesticide production may be difficult. The same water which coffee relies on is the same stuff pests rely on to reproduce. My mother was from Utah, and she always lamented at the small size of her flowers growing up in Chicago. They are much larger in Utah because they can get big without insects eating them.

(I say all this as a point of interest, but I don't drink coffee myself.)

mortos• 1 year ago

That's interesting, it's something I haven't really thought about.

There is some desire for less caffeine as it adds bitterness. Eugenioides, a parent species to arabica the commonly cultivated species, inherently has less caffeine and is said to have a remarkably sweet cup. It's had some attention in barista competitions in the last few years.

klausa2• 1 year ago

Eugenioides is sweet in a way that no other coffee I ever had is sweet.

You sometimes see "sweet" as an axis of flavor of coffee, or as a tasting note on a bag of fancy beans; but eugenioides is very different.

It's _the_ dominant note in that cup, and it is much less fruity or floral, it's just... sweet. You taste the sweetness, and then the rest of the "typical" coffee notes come in the background, but much less pronounced than usual.

I've seen people describe it as a "cereal-like", and while I don't think I fully agree with that description, I do get where they're coming from.

If you're a coffee person and ever see a bag of it on offer (and can afford it), I definitely recommend grabbing it — it's really, really unique (and quite rare!).

(And I do not think this is in any way related to the caffeine content — otherwise most of decafs would be very sweet, and they obviously aren't).

foenix• 1 year ago

My mother was from Utah, and she always lamented at the small size of her flowers growing up in Chicago. They are much larger in Utah because they can get big without insects eating them.

Counter-anecdote from a Utah local: every time we travel to a "wet" area (any travel but Arizona / Nevada) we always find the climate to be more verdant and flowery. Perhaps ecosystems are more multi-faceted in nature.

Counter-counter-anecdote: Our Roses love the weather here.

jofer• 1 year ago

Just moved to Utah (wife's job was relocated here) a couple of years ago after many decades in the southeast and midwest. Some stuff grows like crazy here, some stuff doesn't.

Nothing in the continental US competes with the gulf coast when it comes to sheer masses of flowering vegetation. Everything is green and most of it flowers. Everywhere you look, there's actually really neat and beautiful plants. But most of it is what folks think of as "weeds". Non native stuff in yards (what people think of as "flowers") often struggles. E.g. yapon is native and is often an ornamental and it'll grow like crazy, or even worse, try planting some Mexican petunias... I love those things, but they are a purple swarm that will swallow everything.

But plant your daffodils, and while they'll grow, they get overpowered and outspread by everything native. A lot of common ornamentals can't take the fully saturated then dry cycles and clay soils, too. Then there are the bugs. Everything gets eaten by something. So so so so so many bugs.

But in Utah, those common ornamentals absolutely thrive _if_ they get water. When you irrigate here, things grow like crazy. Flowers are huge and there are basically no bugs here at all. (I don't count box alder beetles or brine flies as "lots of bugs".)

But native vegetation can survive the actual climate here, while most ornamentals can't without extra water.

chongli2• 1 year ago

As a daily coffee drinker I wouldn't mind less caffeine in coffee. I drink coffee for its flavour (and have tried dozens of different coffees from many different roasters). I have tried some decafs but they just taste different and generally much flatter. They also behave very strangely in my espresso machine, requiring a much finer grind to sustain brewing pressure. From my limited understanding of decaf processes, they all remove more than just caffeine, so the effect on flavour is unavoidable.

Kirby644• 1 year ago

The biggest reason decaf brews, tastes, and grinds so different is the processing essentially causes the beans to expands (so you can extract the caffeine out of the center of the very dense, green coffee) and then you need to dehydrate them back to the proper moisture content for roasting. You take a green coffee that is previously extremely dense and non-porous, and make it much much more porous. This leads to roasting difficulities and brittleness when grinding which seems to lead to fines.

I'd agree, less caffeine in the bean without decaffinating would lead to a better tasting coffee (if you want the lesser caffeine).

wil421• 1 year ago

Google says Chicago has 45 days of full sun while Salt Lake City has 222 days. I think sun has much more to do with it than insects.

It’s the same reason Alaska can grow freakishly big produce in a short season. There’s not much darkness during the growing season.

tomrod3• 1 year ago

Not that this applies to you, but coffee is definitely one of the things the Utah-based religions and metacultures should reconsider. Both coffee and tea are extraordinarily healthy compared to their more commonly preferred soda/diet sodas, and much more satisfying. Further, they already allow tea in subculture rulesets like Korea (one can speak with former proselytizers that sold the ideas in the region if doubt is one's initial thoughts). Most trace back their current adherence to cultural baggage of the same diet notions that led to Seventh day Adventists's diets, Wheaties, Kellogg Cereals, etc. Some great articles in Dialogue for the Utah-metaculture based curious. It's clear that the health advice banning coffee is a remnant of earlier times and currently operates as a shibboleth and token of obedience without merit.

Kirby644• 1 year ago

It's clear that the health advice banning coffee is a remnant of earlier times and currently operates as a shibboleth and token of obedience without merit.

How is what you're describing any different than most tenants of faith-based institutions?

djha-skin2• 1 year ago

It was given as a revelation from God[1]. This is not some doctrine that came about from a philospher. It came from the top.

The same revelation discouraged tobacco use, the problems of which wasn't understood until much later. I assume the same will happen with caffeine, tannins, and other coffee/tea things.

1: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/dc-test...

Y_Y2• 1 year ago

A favourite YouTube documentarist, https://www.youtube.com/@KnowingBetter , has done several hours on the fascinating connections between the "major cults", their histories, and mainstream US culture (especially wrt. health and diet).

Straw• 1 year ago

Current models don't predict the climate overall getting drier with climate change- in fact average rainfall goes up slightly.

Some areas will get drier, others (like the Sahara and Sahale for example) have and will get wetter.

jddj• 1 year ago

finding a droubt tolerant species which concerns itself with pesticide production may be difficult

Tobacco, no?

rurp• 1 year ago

One sort-of exception are the mormon tea plants that grow readily in the region. They don't have caffeine, but they do contain several other strong compounds that likely evolved to combat pests. Those plants love hot dry conditions and sandy/rocky soil.

Y_Y2• 1 year ago

Ah, so that's why they don't drink much coffee in Utah. I thought it was because of some Broadway musical!

jessekv2• 1 year ago

In Asia and Australia, people tend to prefer tea.

Maybe, but Taiwan and Australia have some of the best coffee these days.

AnotherGoodName• 1 year ago

As an Australian i thought that was weird since we clearly favor coffee and have a very proud coffee culture so i looked it up.

Turns out that statement is completely false. We drink more coffee than tea which matches my anecdotal experience.

https://www.statista.com/forecasts/1399769/australia-regular...

diob2• 1 year ago

Yeah, given you bump into a different coffee shop every 100ft in Melbourne, I'd be surprised if tea was winning.

unwind• 1 year ago

Yeah, the 'flat white' espresso/milk drink which is now sold all over the world is from Australia.

I guess coming up with a new drink that appeals to people enough to go global happens easier in a place with a coffee culture.

As a Swede who enjoys the occasional flat white: thanks, Australia! :)

sampullman• 1 year ago

Not to mention Vietnam and Indonesia, which are the second and third largest coffee producers in the world.

m3kw9• 1 year ago

They all import same coffee from south america/africa regions

FuriouslyAdrift2• 1 year ago

Robusta is doing just fine... https://www.anthropocenemagazine.org/2024/08/coffee-is-threa...

jtbayly• 1 year ago

If, as the article says, you like instant coffee, then great.

FuriouslyAdrift2• 1 year ago

Vietnam seems to like it, fine. Pretty popular in France and Germany, too. If you have ever had Bustelo, then you've had it.

6177c40f• 1 year ago

Robusta is great if you don't go with the low quality stuff. Good quality Vietnamese Robusta is very enjoyable (and much higher in caffeine than Arabica, which I think is a nice bonus).

There's also the possibility of hybridizing Robusta and Arabica to get the best traits of both. A few hybrid varieties, such as Catimor, have existed on the market for a while. AFAIK Catimor has some of the hardiness of its parent Robusta.

As always, you'll have the best experience if you buy whole beans and grind them yourself (or at least find a supermarket that lets you grind beans fresh). No instant coffee that currently exists will be able to compete with that.

chris_va• 1 year ago

It is amazing how inefficient water use seems to be in plants.

Dry biomass growth is ~1kg/m^2/year, wet maybe 4-5x that. But they see ~1m of rainfall, so 1000kg/m^2/year of water. The roots fail to take up some, but the rest seems to be ~99% lost due to transpiration (some of which is necessary for heat stress and/or pump up nutrients).

Maybe after C4 rice we can get C4/CAM coffee?

foundart• 1 year ago

Transpiration by plants, especially in large forested areas like the Amazon, plays an important role in creating future rainfall

briandear• 1 year ago

Coffee crop failures have been around as long as there have been coffee crops, this idea that current coffee could go extinct is silly. Ideal locations for growing coffee can change and evolve over time, but an extinction event? C’mon. If that were to happen, there would be any people left to care.

Literally everything is blamed on climate change these days. Too much snow? Climate change. Too little snow? Also climate change.

A few years ago I was climbing Mont Blanc and the rockfall due to a warmer winter was blamed on climate change, then a few years later: near-record snow. It’s taking on religious overtones: rather than things happening because it’s God’s will — now it’s “climate.”

I am not denying that the climate changes, I am only calling out that literally every mishap in the natural world is being blamed on it. There is a lot of money in that business.

jpalawaga• 1 year ago

So you're not denying climate change, just the effects of it. I'm not sure that's any better.

We call it climate change because warmer weather produces higher variance in weather patterns--you're adding entropy into the system. Overall warmer, but more rain (and mud/rockslides), more wind, more lightning, etc etc.

rmah• 1 year ago

As I read it, he's not denying the effects either. He's just saying that not everything bad that happens wrt climate and weather is due to "climate change". Sometimes, it's just variations, which have always happened.

Etheryte• 1 year ago

Climate change doesn't mean it only gets warmer, it means you get more extreme weather outcomes. Your anecdotes are a good example of climate change in action.

rwyinuse2• 1 year ago

You don't need an "extinction event" to hurt coffee production so much that drinking it (especially Arabica) becomes an expensive luxury due to lack of supply. Crops that are grown only in particular parts of the world will suffer the most from localized unusual weather patterns, as there won't be production from elsewhere to compensate.

Also, it takes some time to move production elsewhere. And if climate change continues to get worse, you can't really trust any place to have a consistent climate.

joquarky4• 1 year ago

Sure, we should be smart, adaptive, and not blindly follow hype...

But also we should not ignore early warning signs, especially when they give us time to prepare.

It's not fear, it’s just game theory. If there's a decent chance of major disruption, the cost of not acting early could be way worse.

doodlebugging7• 1 year ago

Maybe the answer is for someone to work on boosting natural caffeine levels in yaupon holly tea.

It grows wild all over the SE US and can withstand multi-year drought or regular floods though it does best in a situation where it gets regular rainfall. You may have some in your own yard used as a hedge plant. I have several large trees on my place. It spreads underground by suckers and will take over an area if you do nothing to contain it. It is very strong once it forms a thicket. I have driven across a yaupon thicket in a seismic buggy and been in a situation where none of the tires were touching the ground as I drove because I was crossing a thick tangle of yaupon that supported the vehicle.

Caffeine levels are lower than coffee beans (40-60 mg versus >150 mg I think). Yaupon does also have theobromines, vasodilators, that are supposed to help it prevent the caffeine crash.

I have some leaves dried and drink it make a tea occasionally when I want a boost but not a cup of coffee level boost. It tastes great and is easy to prepare at home.

[0]https://yauponbrothers.com/blogs/news/is-yaupon-better-than-...

There are other sources of information about yaupon holly. It is proposed that the British naturalist who discovered Native Americans using it in their own ceremonies and drinking it casually decided to name it ilex vomitoria not because it was dangerous or poisonous to consume but because since it grew wild in the colonies, it could be a serious competitor to English tea so he used the name to make it less attractive.

sriacha• 1 year ago

There are so many interesting native plants that provide alternatives to our extremely rigid globalized food systems.

Also to note Ilex vomitoria is in the same genus as yerba mate, Ilex paraguariensis.

jfarina• 1 year ago

Can you rebrand a species? Drinking vomitoria sounds less than appetizing.

doodlebugging7• 1 year ago

I enjoy checking all the native plants growing on my place. I discovered another yesterday that I would love to eradicate since it really takes over quickly.

It's in the geranium family Geraniaceae, and is one of the most ancient cultivated plants around. Its use was so common that it has spread from the Mediterranean area where it is native to most every other inhabited place. People ate it and fed it to their animals and it was used as a medicine so they had multiple reasons to carry some with them as they migrated across the landscape.

Redstem Stork's Bill [0]https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/47687-Erodium-cicutarium

Supposed to taste like a parsley. I ate some yesterday and agree that it is close to parsley with a slightly more sharp flavor if you just eat the leaves and stems. I tried some of the seed pods and that was a no-go. They would need to be cooked to be edible since they are hard and fibrous raw. I haven't tried the root yet.

It's unlikely that I will ever eat my way out of this invasive infestation but I will add some to the salad to see whether my wife notices.

diob2• 1 year ago

Maybe I’m just too deep into coffee at this point, but unless yaupon has different origins, processes, or varietals, I don’t really see folks in the specialty coffee world making the switch.

That said, it is interesting, and I’d definitely give it a try.

Some people do drink coffee just for the caffeine—but those folks aren’t usually worried about beans or brew methods. They’re just as likely to grab an energy drink or whatever’s convenient.

But for a lot of us, coffee’s more than that. There’s a whole culture around it, and I don’t see that going away anytime soon.

Then again, I'm deep into coffee, so I'm probably biased.

doodlebugging7• 1 year ago

I agree that there is no likelihood that coffee snobs are gonna jump to yaupon tea. I mentioned this really just to point out that there is a native plant here in North America that produces caffeine so if one day we wake up and supplies of the real beans are short or interrupted for long periods we will have something totally free to brew up for a caffeine hit. If you're out camping in an area where yaupon grows wild you can always grab a few leaves, wash them and dry them until they're brown, crush them and boil some tea water. No need for a late night cup of coffee that could keep you too wired to rest when you can enjoy a simple cup of yaupon tea that won't leave you wired.

I drink a lot of coffee too. I enjoy the flavor and hanging around without a cup of coffee feels strange. Sometimes I just add some boiling water to the dust in the coffee cup, stir it up and see what happens. I've certainly had worse at more gas stations than I care to remember.

fellowniusmonk• 1 year ago

The naming of yaupon really ticks me off, of all the things that should get a scientific rename it's yaupon, clearly it was a successful marketing effort by the Empire, er, by the British to knock out a delicious and ubiquitous competitor.

doodlebugging7• 1 year ago

I can see the guy now as the realization that this native plant could undermine the British East India tea trade if people came to enjoy yaupon tea. It probably didn't take any convincing to get him to assign such an uninviting name to the plant and in doing so, save one of the British Empire's main trade items.

It was definitely a chickenshit move on his part though.

nkozyra• 1 year ago

Maybe the answer is for someone to work on boosting natural caffeine levels in yaupon holly tea

The problem isn't getting caffeine, though. You can buy a tub of 200mg caffeine pills for $3. People like coffee. Substituting coffee isn't just a matter of caffeine for drinkers.

doodlebugging7• 1 year ago

I agree. You can get your caffeine boost from a pill if that floats your boat. I too love coffee and for a variety of reasons. I was only mentioning that there is a native plant that produces caffeine and has a pleasant taste so that it could serve as a caffeine (or tea) substitute in the event that supplies of real coffee became unreliable for any reason.

I drink lots of coffee and various teas.

chasil3• 1 year ago

As the article states, the taste is complex beyond our understanding.

"When it comes to taste, coffee is amazingly complex. A single cup may contain up to 1,200 volatile compounds. Yet what you perceive in a cup depends on many things besides the plant’s genome: the environment in which it grew, the weather, the roast, the water used for brewing. Even the color of the cup matters. White makes coffee seem more intense, while clear glass makes it seem sweeter."

spookie3• 1 year ago

Yeah, pretty much. I drink tea from time to time, but I still prefer coffee. I don't know, feels more earthy or fuller? I also like the smell better.

Kon-Peki• 1 year ago

You can buy a tub of 200mg caffeine pills for $3

The vast majority of caffeine that is available to add to products is extracted from coffee arabica. Either from the creation of decaf coffee or from other plant matter. IE caffeine is a useful byproduct of coffee arabica production.

There are most definitely other sources of caffeine, but if coffee arabica is no longer grown/harvested in the quantity it is currently, you would expect the cost of caffeine to increase significantly. I doubt we’d have shortages or anything like that, but I suppose it’s possible.

CommieBobDole• 1 year ago

I always thought it was called that because it was used by native Americans to make 'black drink' which they consumed ceremonially, tending to vomit afterwards.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yaupon_tea

MarkusWandel• 1 year ago

Does it taste better than Yerba Mate? That is definitely an "acquired taste" and while you can get used to it and even like it as much as tea, I don't think it can hold a candle to coffee.

awaymazdacx5• 1 year ago

Caffeine mgs for various brewed extracts can be lower than a cup of coffee. Even decaf still contains <.002mg, remain static over the designated beverage half-life. For third-wave, light roast blooms, containing more acid, the caffeine content is punctuated.

Henchman216• 1 year ago

The world is addicted to stimulants. It is very disheartening.

connicpu• 1 year ago

Some people just like the flavor, personally I drink a cup of decaf every evening. Of course, a LOT are addicted to caffeine. The most normalized addiction in the world ahead of alcohol and nicotine, although those are becoming more stigmatized over time.

joquarky4• 1 year ago

Internet addiction is so normalized that you didn't even include it.

histriosum2• 1 year ago

I personally love the taste of coffee. If decaffeinated were able to achieve the same flavors, I'd be quite happy with it. Unfortunately, it doesn't taste at all the same.

Henchman216• 1 year ago

I will not consume caffeine and tbh the rest of you need to slow down. Modern life runs on stimulants and caffeine is a whip at the back of the worker. I know this forum doesn’t give a damn about worker’s rights, but I do, and man I am tired of all this.

joquarky4• 1 year ago

Most of the world is also deeply addicted to the internet, and we have rapidly normalized it to at least the same degree as caffeine.

I see it all the time: people go out to restaurants, talk for a few minutes, then silently drift into their phones. The connection just evaporates. It feels like we've traded presence for stimulation.

And I'm not saying this as a Luddite. I used to be incredibly excited about technology. I still am, in some ways. But it's hard not to feel like we're losing something important.

I am often reminded of /The Game/ (S05E06) episode from TNG[0]

Are we in it?

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Game_(Star_Trek:_The_Next_...

vmwareuser-020• 1 year ago

Liberica, which is already popularized in Malaysia, is another type of coffee that’s resistant to heat and droughts.

I’m introducing some plants to a rural community in Panama that had its Robusta crops ruined by the harsh summers we’ve experienced over the past couple of years.

lycopodiopsida• 1 year ago

I've had some bags of liberica recently and it is very interesting. A lot of vanilla, overshadowing all other flavors. I prefer arabica, but I am also 100% for ending the arabica/robusta monocrop in favor of more coffee species. It certainly enriches coffee culture!

more_corn• 1 year ago

What a refreshing piece of long form journalism.

saunved_42• 1 year ago

This is a beautiful read into the history and novelties of coffee. I'd love to taste stenophylla some day

sgt• 1 year ago

Other coffee beans is intriguing. Often it's very obvious as to why Arabica won our hearts, though! A while back I tried a coffee bean called Racemosa. The beans are like tiny little pellets, and when you drink it your eyes will widen and go.. "WOW. HGRRRGH. EW. HMM.. INTERESTING. OK, NOT COFFEE AS WE KNOW IT."

Coffea stenophylla: A forgotten bean that could save coffee from extinction

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