A collaborative study looks at how changing climate conditions might be affecting the taste, aroma, and overall quality of coffee
By Lisa LaPoint
You probably would notice
if some of your morning brew’s brightness disappeared, or if the familiar
fruity aroma dulled a little. Changes like these might not stem from when the
beans were roasted or ground, but from growing conditions.
Coffee
is grown on more than 27 million acres across 12.5 million largely smallholder
farms in more than 50 countries. Many coffee-producing regions are increasingly
experiencing changing climate conditions, whose impact on coffee’s taste,
aroma, and even dietary quality is as much a concern as yields and
sustainability.
A
new research review says that coffee quality is vulnerable to shifts in
environmental factors associated with climate change. The review, led by researchers
from the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts and Montana
State University, also finds that some current adaptation strategies to combat
these effects provide hope for positive outcomes.
“A subpar cup of coffee has economic implications as well as sensory ones. Factors that influence coffee production have great impacts on buyers’ interest, the price of coffee, and ultimately the livelihoods of the farmers who grow it,” says Sean Cash, an economist and the Bergstrom Foundation Professor in Global Nutrition at the Friedman School and senior author on the study, published in Frontiers in Plant Science.
“Climate
change impacts on crops are already causing economic and political disruption
in many parts of the world,” he says. “If we can understand the science of
these changes, we might help farmers and other stakeholders better manage
coffee production in the face of this and future challenges.”
In
their analysis, the researchers looked at the effects of 10 prevalent
environmental factors and management conditions associated with climate change
and climate adaptation, respectively, across 73 published articles.
The
most consistent trends the team found were that farms at higher altitudes were
associated with better coffee flavor and aroma, while too much light exposure
was associated with a decrease in coffee quality. A synthesis of the evidence
found that coffee quality is also susceptible to changes due to water stress
and increased temperatures and carbon dioxide, although more research on these
specific factors is needed.
Some
current efforts to mitigate the effects of climate change, including shade
management to control light exposure, selection and maintenance of
climate-resilient wild coffee plants, and pest management, show promise and
feasibility, but innovative solutions to support bean growth at all elevations
need to be devised, the team says.
“These
strategies are giving some hope that coffee quality can be maintained or
improved and will ultimately help farmers consider how to design evidence-based
interventions to support their farms,” says Selena Ahmed, an ethnobotanist in
the Food and
Health Lab at Montana State University who had been a
postdoctoral scholar in the Tufts IRACDA program. “These
impacts on crops are important to study in general, not just for coffee. Our
food systems support our food security, nutrition and health.”
Lisa
LaPoint, assistant director of public relations, can be reached at lisa.lapoint@tufts.edu.
