Coffee-growing countries becoming too hot to cultivate beans, analysis finds | Five countries responsible for 75% of world’s coffee supply record average of 57 extra days of coffee-harming heat a year

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/feb/18/coffee-growing-countries-too-hot-to-cultivate-beans-analysis

367 points · 61 comments · view on lemmy.world

61 Comments

JoMiran@lemmy.ml · 57 pts · 179d (15 replies)

If coffee goes, I'm done with this shithole existence.

homes@piefed.world · 14 pts · 179d (2 replies)

Seriously. I had better die before this happens.

fallaciousBasis@lemmy.world · -3 pts · 179d (1 reply)

Good luck with that! Hopefully cancer. Cancer isn't so bad, right?

homes@piefed.world · 6 pts · 179d

Depends on the cancer

But, mostly, yes

SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca · 13 pts · 179d (3 replies)

It just means instead of Arabica type beans, we will have to choke down robusta, the basis of cheap industrial coffee.

Thedogdrinkscoffee@lemmy.ca · 12 pts · 179d

Aparently you didn't see the chart showing Vietnam's robusta threat in this.

SexualPolytope@lemmy.sdf.org · 5 pts · 179d

Man, I'll honestly just stick to tea if it comes to that. The only good robusta drink I've ever had was some south Indian filter coffee (also kalled filter kaapi). It's traditionally a mix of robusta and chicory, but you can make it with Arabica if you want. The flavor profile is kinda similar to that of a Mokapot brew.

But other than that, I vastly prefer a cup of first flush Darjeeling tea.

HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 179d
Janx@piefed.social · 10 pts · 179d

We don't get coffee, and Nazis are back!? Fuck this world...

WanderingThoughts@europe.pub · 0 pts · 179d

They'll figure out vertical farming for coffee quickly enough. It probably means coffee will become more expensive. Things becoming a lot more expensive is basically what adapting to climate change means.

GraniteM@lemmy.world · -3 pts · 179d

Hey, there's still that mushroom-based coffee substitute!

I'm sorry for making light of a serious situation. I would also rather die than drink that cursed substance.

fallaciousBasis@lemmy.world · -16 pts · 179d (4 replies)

No one gonna miss you. Bye Felicia.

KyuubiNoKitsune@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 5 pts · 179d (2 replies)

Such a weird response.

fallaciousBasis@lemmy.world · -4 pts · 179d (1 reply)

Yea? Is it so much better than if coffee leaves I'm going to leave this shit hole existence? Worse?

Please educate us all in your quantifications and qualifications.

KyuubiNoKitsune@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 5 pts · 179d

Equally weird response.

Anyway, may I suggest going outside a bit?

Tabula_stercore@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 179d

So many downvotes on a 5/7 shitpost comment, smh.

morto@piefed.social · 44 pts · 179d (3 replies)

The average person will only realize that something is really changing when they have to drastically change their consumption habits, and it will be too late to something about it

fallaciousBasis@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 179d (2 replies)

Why?

village604@adultswim.fan · 4 pts · 179d

Because human inertia is a force to be reckoned with.

morto@piefed.social · 1 pts · 179d

Why they will only realize when their consumption is affected, or why it will be too late?

kadu@scribe.disroot.org · 32 pts · 179d (17 replies)

Brazil's Embrapa is trying to breed Robusta to have a taste profile more closely matching Arabica, whilst also resisting the heat better. Difficult challenge given Robusta tastes like burnt rubber.

tiramichu@sh.itjust.works · 44 pts · 179d (7 replies)

This is gonna be like the Gros Michel banana thing again isn't it - where decades from now almost none of the world's coffee will taste as good as it used to, and nobody quite knows why.

kadu@scribe.disroot.org · 12 pts · 179d

Very likely, yes

Axolotl_cpp@feddit.it · 6 pts · 179d (4 replies)

I doubt because in that case we do have seeds of the plant and it can be put in a greenhouse, generally the situation is way different, i'il explain myself better:

Gran michele is now extinct because of how it was cultivated; In practice, to avoid having seeds in the fruit, production was carried out using cuttings, so practically all Gran Michele plants were clones of a group of other Gran Michele plants, meaning that genetic mutations never developed. Since none of them had developed a mutation capable of resisting a fungus (the name of which I cannot remember), they ALL died and we simply didn't had seeds

tiramichu@sh.itjust.works · 7 pts · 179d (3 replies)

You can still buy the Gros Michel banana nowadays. It's not extinct, but is a rare and expensive speciality, rather than the common type of banana we see on the shelves like it used to be.

$37 USD per banana, on this particular site

If climate change makes growing Arabica coffee commercially non-viable at scale and all the growers move to hardier alternatives, then Arabica will still exist - absolutely - but instead of being the coffee you can drink every day it will also become a rare and expensive speciality, just like the banana.

ThePantser@sh.itjust.works · 11 pts · 179d

Quote did not age well.

arrow74@lemmy.zip · 4 pts · 179d

Wow that's gone up me and a few coworkers ordered a box a couple of years ago and it was like $9 per banana.

They were good, I see the appeal of the variety, but they were not $9 banana good. Let alone $37 banana good.

Axolotl_cpp@feddit.it · 2 pts · 179d

Damn, didn't know they still existed, sadly they cost a lot :/

ThatGuy46475@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 179d

As long as embrapa also gives a 3x multiplayer it will be ok

DivineDev@piefed.social · 9 pts · 179d (6 replies)

Robusta tastes like burnt rubber

I will not accept this baseless slander! Vietnamese coffee (which is basically always robusta) mixed with sweetened condensed milk is the best coffee known to man and I will allow no different opinion.

kadu@scribe.disroot.org · 20 pts · 179d

with sweetened condensed milk

To be fair, it's almost impossible to screw up condensed milk, it always tastes good.

phar@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 179d

I have a different opinion

ugandan_airways@lemmy.zip · 6 pts · 179d (1 reply)

I’ve been to Vietnam several times, and their coffee is basically crack. I couldn't stop drinking it.

SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca · 4 pts · 179d

There are coffee drinkers, then people who drink melted desserts.

shininghero@pawb.social · 3 pts · 179d (1 reply)

I've had a couple good roubustas, but it is a fickle breed to roast. If done wrong, even a medium roast will come out tasting like Folger's. Moderately higher quality Folger's due to the freshness, of course, but still Folger's.

ThePantser@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 179d

Good thing I prefer light roast, like so light it turns fluffy when grinding.

SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca · 1 pts · 179d

The taste profile comes from warm sunny days and cool nights. That cycle is critical and why the best coffee comes from subtropical mountain regions.

HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 179d

the roaster i like has a bean from honduras and that's what i'm betting on

Eternal192@anarchist.nexus · 22 pts · 179d (2 replies)

Jfc everything is becoming a luxury...

BeardededSquidward@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 18 pts · 179d

Of course, to the oligarchs this is the end game. I equate them to the top tier raiding gears in WoW back in the day. They didn't want people getting purples so easily because it was prestige only they had it. They argued and bickered vehemently to prevent the average prole from being able to get it. Some people need to feel superior to others because they're often bankrupt of personality.

tehn00bi@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 179d

I feel like the scene in v for vendetta when she eats toast with real butter and was shocked. That’s basically our future.

Phillip k dick envisioned a world were everything was fake and only the very wealthy could afford real.

HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world · 12 pts · 179d (3 replies)

WE NEED NEPTUNIAN ICE STAT

pHr34kY@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 179d (2 replies)

Solving the problem once and for all.

village604@adultswim.fan · 5 pts · 179d (1 reply)

But, wouldn't...

NotBillMurray@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 179d

"ONCE AND FOR ALL!"

Trudge@piefed.social · 9 pts · 179d
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sepiroth154@feddit.nl · 8 pts · 179d (5 replies)

Wouldn't it just move more north or am I thinking too simplistic?

silence7@slrpnk.net · 12 pts · 179d (2 replies)

It's a bit too simplistic; coffee doesn't tolerate the overnight lows that you get outside the tropics and only grows between 25°N to 30°S. You could in theory grow it indoors with artificial lighting like marijuana, but that's really expensive.

oce@jlai.lu · 2 pts · 179d (1 reply)

I bet a time will come when it will be worth it, like heated greenhouse tomatoes.

random_character_a@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 179d

I have one coffee tree in my living room. If I take it outside in the summer I might harverst enough for two large cups in a single year.

Roasting beans on a kitchen oven sucks and basicly any brand in stores tastes better (probably because of my shitty roasting).

frongt@lemmy.zip · 6 pts · 179d

It takes years and years to establish a reliable farm. Climate change is happening faster and more unpredictably.

Also, it's not just temperature/latitude that plants rely on, it's soil, elevation, humidity, and sunlight. Those are really hard to change.

mushroommunk@lemmy.today · 4 pts · 179d

On top of the temperature thing silence mentioned, moving coffee north would push other crops further north and cause a chain of issues

_haha_oh_wow_@sh.itjust.works · 5 pts · 179d

These bastards are going to take coffee from us.

rushmonke@ttrpg.network · 5 pts · 179d (5 replies)

Wouldn't this also mean that parts of the world that were previously too cold to grow the beans are now appropriate?

silence7@slrpnk.net · 6 pts · 179d (2 replies)

The problem is that those areas are in the subtropical dry zone, where water constraints mean we won't see sustainable large-scale agriculture.

fallaciousBasis@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 179d (1 reply)

Let them drink tea.

tehn00bi@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 179d

Very possibly the only alternative.

HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 179d

nope we need to get ice from neptune to fix this now it's gone too far

OMGWTFBBQLOL@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 179d

Not the right type of soil is my understanding.

anon_8675309@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 179d

Fuck

spacebread98@lemmy.zip · 2 pts · 179d

Time to switch back to cocaine beverages such as original Coca-Cola

choui4@lemmy.zip · 1 pts · 179d

Prop hip hop did a really good expose on this on the podcast "it could happen here"