An epic slate of scientists wowed the audience at round one of the SCAA Symposium. First up, Dr. Peter Baker, Senior Scientist at CABI:

“The world’s coffee lands are in constant flux. Where is new coffee coming from?” Dr. Baker is renowned for adapting the concept of “peak oil” to the coffee industry, and his speech today addressed a number of the concerns surrounding a “peak coffee” model, including the destruction of natural habitat and colossal carbon release related to creating new farms and production sites. Did you know that no one has ever properly calculated coffee’s carbon footprint? Dr. Peter Baker thinks that’s a bunch of hooey, and suggests that we rethink coffee’s physical technology, social technology, and business models to anticipate and effect positive change in the face of massive challenges.

“However clear we think we are, human kind manages to screw things up in the end.”

Next, Dr. Juliana Jaramillo, Scientist at the University of Hannover, who was kind enough to talk bugs, pests, and the challenges they pose. “There is no little enemy”, Dr. Jaramillo tells the room, before elucidating how farmers can battle the coffee borer using…science! The coffee borer: he’s a real piece of work. He sits around all day long, looking for some nice coffee beans to eat…he doesn’t know how expensive they are. The coffee borer doesn’t care. Coffee borer doesn’t give a shit, he just keeps eating his way through coffee cherries until he dies. Eww. Fortunately, according to Dr. Jaramillo, we can develop coffee strains to defeat the borer and stop him in his nasty tracks without reducing quality.

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Dr. Jaramillo closed by advising us to “think outside the box without reinventing the wheel”, in our preparation for an inevitable apocalyptic battle between bugs and humans.

Last but certainly not least, Dr. Tim Schilling, one of the extraordinary bright minds behind the GCQRI, starts out by asking the question: “what do we really know about coffee?” Turns out, not much – and that’s why organizations like the GCQRI and people like Dr. Schilling are so darn important to the future of this industry. He may not know it all, but he’s willing to share what he’s got; for example, the Brazil-Caramaga study that found coffee’s optimum temperature to be 18 degrees celsius, and concluded that temperatures near 23 degrees celsius seriously degrade cup quality. How do we grapple with that in the face of climate change and steamy growing conditions?

Coffee migration up the mountain and away from the equator is the current en vogue answer, with coffees from high elevations being highly prized and cupping like gang busters. The other option? Super bred “hybrid vigor” clone varietals, tolerant to heat and perhaps to bugs too. “Changing the variety of genetics mitigates the problem” of temperature effects, though Dr. Schilling cautions that a genetic solution may not be the end all be all of this problem. It’s a work in progress, one that requires tremendous research, and that’s why we should all support and stay up to date on what’s up with the GCQRI. All in all, a lovely speech by Dr. Schilling, who is sort of like…if you were going to make a monster movie about coffee, you would want to cast this guy as the mad scientist with a heart of gold.

Group discussion! Coffee break! Nick Cho live tweets! “Earnest Eats” apple cookies!

 

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