Cuppa Java?

When I was a kid, my home town had a doughnut shop that I frequented on occasion.  I could get a large, tasty doughnut for just five cents.  I remember noting in passing that a cup of coffee to wash it down would have been another five cents.  Not that I ever bought coffee.

I tasted my mother's coffee once or twice, and was nauseated by the taste.  I was 23 before I began sipping an occasional cup of coffee -- to stay awake, in lieu of  my usual No-Doz tablets.  Finally I walked up to a fast food counter and ordered a cup.  I don't remember what I paid for it.  More than five cents, I'm sure, but not much more.

What I do know is that I now pay $4.91, including sales tax, for a cup of Starbucks coffee.  An article in this week's The Economist persuades me that I'll be paying much more in the years to come.

As is so often the case, nowadays, the villain is Global Warming.  Coffee -- especially Coffea arabica, by far the most popular species today -- is fussy about the temperature zones in which it grows.  Studies quoted by the article indicate that by the end of this century, depending on how much warmer it gets, between 35 and 77 percent of today's coffee-growing cropland will be unsuitable for growing Arabica coffee.  Even by 2050, the unsuitable cropland will be between 43 and 58 percent.

Of course, certain cooler lands now unsuitable for coffee will then become suitable because of Global Warming, but maps included in the article show that those newly suitable lands will be far fewer than those lost.

Several remedies are suggested, all of which present problems.  Another species, Coffea rubica, is sturdier and less dependent on a narrow range of temperatures.  But Rubica coffee doesn't have as appealing a taste, and is used at present mainly for instant coffee.  For consumers like me, who drink coffee primarily as a hot drink, and secondarily for caffeine, this probably won't be a problem.  But many or most coffee drinkers are more discriminating when it comes to taste.  By analogy, some of us may also drink jug wine, but many others gladly pay large premiums for high quality wine.

Coffee agriculturalists are examining other lesser known species.  Coffea affinis and Coffea stenophylla, both rare and both found primarily in Sierra Leone, have pleasant flavors, and are less dependent on cooler temperatures than either Arabica or Rubica.  Another possible candidate is Coffea dewevrei, commonly known as Excelsa, a species with a good flavor, that was once grown extensively in the Congo region, but in 1931 fell prey to disease, wiping out many growers.

All of these alternatives show promise, but each presents its own difficulties which would have to be dealt with by coffee growers.  The article seemed cautiously optimistic that one or more solutions would be found, and that coffee would continue to be drunk by future generations.

I, myself, of course, will drink almost any liquid that is hot and black.  Coffee drinkers like me, however, aren't the consumers that concern growers and roasters of coffee in today's world.  It's that fellow ahead of you in line at Starbucks, the one who demands to know in which part of Sumatra his coffee was grown, who offers both the challenge and the rewards to tomorrow's coffee industry.