Coffee is a mainstay for many college students. Some view it as a social institution, gathering with friends to talk about their lives over a latte. Others see it as an essential during busy times, mainlining it during finals weeks or during long haul study sessions. However, without some significant changes, opportunities for routine coffee consumption could look very different for college students in the coming decades. High quality arabica beans used for much of the coffee we consume is in short supply. These beans, grown in parts of Africa, thrive in a cool and damp, but tropical climate. The beans are processed and then exported all over the world. Climate change continues to cause temperatures to rise and extends dry conditions, the arabica coffee crop in places like Ethiopia and Kenya is being threatened. As much as half the land currently used to grow coffee could be unusable by 2050. While coffee is also grown and exported from South America, the flavor of South American coffee is much different than the arabica coffee grown in Africa.
Researchers at the Royal Botanic Gardens in London are looking for ways to save not only the world’s coffee drinking habits, but also the livelihoods and economies of those who depend on the high quality arabica coffee beans. Looking for alternatives to the arabica beans preferred by so many coffee drinkers, researchers may have stumbled onto a solution, a bean, once thought to be extinct, that was grown more than a century ago in West Africa. Unlike the arabica bean, the Stenophylla bean can be grown in the hotter, dryer conditions the world will be experiencing within the next decade or so. Moreover, because the taste of the Stenophylla bean is similar in taste to the arabica bean many consumers are accustomed to drinking, coffee lovers should experience little adjustment. The challenge though, is to develop enough supply of Stenophylla beans to offset slowly dwindling arabica crop output.
Stenophylla beans are currently found growing in the wild in Sierra Leone, an Africa nation located on the coast of West Africa. Seedlings of the Stenophylla bean will be planted later this year. The plants will take some time to grow and develop, before they will produce beans, but researchers expect that within five to seven years, the Stenophylla bean will be commercially available albeit in small quantities. Whether this will be enough to maintain the world’s caffeine buzz remains to be seen, however, the wake-up call being sounded by coffee researchers that arabica supplies may be in jeopardy should encourage further interest in protecting coffee supply chains.
Discussion/Questions:
- Climate change is having a negative impact on the production of high quality arabica beans in parts of Africa. While at least 60 percent of the global supply of coffee comes from Africa, South America also produces a significant quantity of coffee. Are the two types of coffee substitutes? Explain. How would you characterize the Stenophylla bean? Is it a substitute for the arabica bean?
- Discuss why the discovery of the Stenophylla bean is so important to the global coffee supply chain. Without the option of the Stenophylla bean, what will happen to the price of arabica beans as crop output dwindles as a result of climate change and what are the implications for consumers? What does the discovery of the new bean mean for the economies of countries that produce and export arabica beans?
- Consider demand for coffee from the perspective of various consumers including students, causal drinkers, and those who depend on it. Is demand for coffee elastic or inelastic? What does your response tell you about the price of coffee relative to its supply?
Sources: BBC News: https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-56804147. Photo by Craig McKay on Unsplash.