an hour ago by andrewxdiamond
A hacker news favorite, James Hoffmann, got the opportunity to taste this lost coffee about a month ago.
As typical with a James video, it’s high quality and worth a watch.
35 minutes ago by phnofive
TL;DW: it's got a clean, sweet, mildly acidic flavor.
23 minutes ago by pedroma
Maybe this is the joke, but it seems he says that every video.
5 minutes ago by qbasic_forever
Not in the videos where he tastes 50 year old coffee beans someone found in their attic. :)
3 minutes ago by soniman
Articles like this are usually planted by an industry group. The article mentions that the species was never lost because samples are held in labs, so there really isn't any news content here. What is probably going on is that coffee prices have been in a long term slump, producers are barely making money on arabica beans, and they want to introduce a cheaper variety that isn't low-margin robusta in order to survive as the low prices persist.
44 minutes ago by selfsimilar
Slightly OT but is there a resource to find local coffee alternatives – plants that produce caffeine or other mild stimulants – to try to reduce one’s shipping/carbon footprint? I found it difficult to even know what local alternatives there are. For reference I’m in the US midwest, but I’m curious about how one finds local alternatives that are not one-to-one more generally.
6 minutes ago by SECProto
In terms of carbon footprint, coffee (as a low gram-per-serving product) is probably low.
For example, I consume ~200g/week of coffee (10kg/yr), all of which would be shipped in 25kg bags from the producing locale to my local roastery. The shipping carbon impact would likely be easily offset by a single consumer item purchased from overseas
32 minutes ago by WaxProlix
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caffeine#Natural_occurrence
Not sure what they're referring to by unrelated plants in 'temperate climates', which I suspect parts of the midwest might be generously described as.
I bet you could grow some of the linked items in a garden or smallish greenhouse, though.
30 minutes ago by hundreddaysoff
How about chicory? It's naturalized to the US. Easy to grow perennial with pretty flowers that would look great in the garden.
28 minutes ago by WaxProlix
Afaik there is no caffeine in chicory, if that's a meaningful discriminator.
6 minutes ago by ChrisMarshallNY
As a hardcore coffee addict, this makes me happy.
I wonder if some major corporation (I think we know the one that comes to mind) will find a way to corner the species, and act as a licensing gatekeeper...
an hour ago by re
Lake Street Dive released a song last year that touched on the impact of climate change on coffee, among other things. One of my favorite songs of the year, though it doesn't make me feel great.
> To the next generation, / Merry Christmas / You're working harder than ever now / And the coffee sucks / You know, Colombia and Kenya got too damn hot / And now you're making do with what you got
18 minutes ago by Udik
And the news are yet another proof that many of the climate change doom scenarios start from the assumption of a perfectly static world incapable of change or adaptation. This coffee species seems to taste even better than the one we use now (and yet the production with the current plant, far from decreasing because of climate change, has in fact grown 60% in the last 20 years).
14 hours ago by throw0101a
Coffea stenophylla:
> Coffea affinis and C. stenophylla may possess useful traits for coffee crop plant development, including taste differentiation, disease resistance, and climate resilience. These attributes would be best accessed via breeding programs, although the species may have niche-market potential via minimal domestication.
* https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpls.2020.00616...
8 minutes ago by dicroce
at least we'll have coffee when climate change roasts us.
an hour ago by bioinformatics
So, was it warmer before?
21 minutes ago by mackal
I don't think it was in the article, but apparently it has a lower yield and smaller berries. So basically economics caused it to stop being commercially cultivated.
37 minutes ago by cmrdporcupine
Maybe try reading the article.
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