60% of coffee species threatened with extinction

[digitS']

UH-OH!!!

LINK

The question we all must ask ourselves: What are we going to do about it?

Steve
also, some history on coffee species used and help in understand the difference between Arabica (Coffea arabica) and Robusta (Coffea canephora)

 

[canesisters]

ok.... Don't panic... um... ok.

So - what does it take to grow a coffee .. umm plant? Tree??? How many will it take to support my coffee habit?
While we're at it - I heard this morning that cocoa beans may become extinct.

 

[Rammy]

Nooooooooooooooooo!

 

[thistlebloom]

What are we going to do about it?

Learn to like tea I guess.

 

[Pulsegleaner]

ok.... Don't panic... um... ok.

So - what does it take to grow a coffee .. umm plant? Tree??? How many will it take to support my coffee habit?
While we're at it - I heard this morning that cocoa beans may become extinct.

Not all that much actually. If I remember from what I have read, coffee does pretty well as a houseplant, and can flower and fruit at sizes containable by a large indoor pot. You can get personal roasters (or simply roast them in an oven).

HOW MANY you'd need for regular consumption I don't know. Some of these say they will make hundreds of berries when mature (the berry's flesh is also good to eat, tastes like cranberries and is high in antioxidants.)

Trade Winds has all major coffee types

http://www.tradewindsfruit.com/search.php?search_query=cof

 

[Collector]

Definitely a good time to panic, no coffee no..... uhh. Ummm. Yeah not good news.

 

[Zeedman]

UH-OH!!!

LINK

The question we all must ask ourselves: What are we going to do about it?

Steve
also, some history on coffee species used and help in understand the difference between Arabica (Coffea arabica) and Robusta (Coffea canephora)

Drink tea? Chew Kola nuts? Go cold turkey???

Not to worry, oh caffeine lovers. There's whole aisles of "carbonated coffee", in numerous flavors. Just think of Coke or Pepsi as iced coffee. If you like hot beverages though, I guess switching to sodas could still be considered 'cold turkey'.

Totally aside from which, I doubt that the coffee industry would allow coffee to go "extinct". Where there's big money involved (and coffee is BIG money) industry-funded science will find a solution. That already happened to bananas; Cavendish (the ones we eat now) replaced the Gros Michel, which had been the main export variety until an outbreak of disease wiped them out in the 50's.

 

[Pulsegleaner]

Drink tea? Chew Kola nuts? Go cold turkey???

Eat guarana straight?

Actually, in a certain sense, tea is at greater risk than coffee. It's a lot more dependent on terroir (so a lot harder to move if an area becomes unsuitable) and a lot more of it is concentrated in one place (one bad blight goes across Asia, and the price of tea goes so high you need to be a millionaire to drink it)

 

[baymule]

Yaupon (weedy shrub) leaves make a passable tea and they contain caffeine.

 

[Pulsegleaner]

Doesn't Yaupon make you vomit if you drink significant quantities of it?