In his welcome address for the 2013 Symposium, Peter Giuliano starts at the beginning. The idea of Symposium came from the ancient Greeks, who recognized the power of coming together to drink and discuss ideas and views. The beverage consumed at the Greek symposium- wine- had some negative effects on the tradition, and the Greek idea of symposium fizzled out in antiquity. Peter argues that the Ethiopian tradition of drinking coffee together is a different kind of symposium, this time built around coffee. He traces the spread of coffee consumption from Ethiopia to Arabia and the rest of the world, and points out that wherever coffee spread, intellectual and political development followed shortly thereafter. This idea takes flight from there – touching on neuroscience, architecture, and computer science to support the assertion that coffee – and the connections that coffee creates- actually make us smarter and stronger.

This talk on coffee, connection and symposium sets the tone for the challenging ideas that flourish at the SCAA Symposium, and hints at the transformative power of intellectual exchange over delicious cups of coffee.

In this compelling talk, Dr. Davis leads us on an exploration of the Coffea genus, learning about the amazing diversity of coffee in the wild. We discover the smallest coffee species, and the largest; coffee with winged fruit and black tentacled fruit and brainlike beans. Davis introduces us to the parents of arabica coffee, and how the birthplace of coffee might not be in Ethiopia after all. He describes the amazing genetic diversity of arabica coffee in modern Ethiopia, and the chilling lack of diversity everywhere else. And finally, he looks into the future of the species, allowing us to glimpse coffee’s ultimate fate.

It’s a gripping ride. One Symposium delegate said, “I never thought I would be on the edge of my seat during a genetics lecture!” Dr. Davis is engaging and clear, giving us a brilliant introduction to the origins and future of coffee.

Collaboration, Cowboys, and Breaking Bread

The morning began by picking up a thread from last year’s Symposium: Pathological collaboration. Shauna Alexander Mohr introduced the fledgling Coffeelands Food Security Coaltion (CFSC), a collaborative effort of major specialty coffee companies inlcuding Starbucks, Green Mountain, CBI, and Sustainable Harvest, as well as NGOs such as Mercy Corps to address systemic causes of seasonal hunger. The project is structured on a model Alexander Mohr called “collective impact,” designed for problems that are “systemic, shared, and bigger than any one organization can tackle alone”—an apt description for hunger, coffee leaf rust, and climate change. The “collaborative impact” model recognizes that risks for complex problems like hunger are interconnected and proposes that solutions—and funding sources—be similarly interconnected and shared among competing private enterprises, governments, and nonprofits. The five elements of the framework include defining a common agenda, using shared measurement systems, planning mutually reinforcing activities, locating “backbone” support organizations, and keeping partner organizations in continuous communication. The first phase of the food security project, currently only a month into its exploratory phase, is a three-year partnership that proposes to addressing multiple overlapping facets of food security, including market gardens, gender equity, climate-smart agriculture, and working with local governments. The presentation was short on details about the project, but inspired a lot of chatter at the morning’s coffee break: How had these companies decided to come together? How were they approaching the definition of shared goals in a competitive environment?

In the second presentation of the morning, Peter Kettler of Radio Lifeline criticized the prevailing ethos of the coffee industry as being perhaps too enamored of the American myth of the Lone Ranger. “The days of the lonesome cowboy are over,” he said. “If we are going to meet the challenges of disease, land use competiton, food insecurity, and an aging farmering population, it will require collective action. We have to gather around the campfire.” Kettler described how a simple idea—providing African coffee farmers with reliable, realtime access to market price information—spawned unexpected opportunities to collaborate and build new programs. In the early 2000s, Kettler realized that many African farmers were being paid abysmially low prices for their coffee because they didn’t have access to current market prices, making them vulnerable to exploitation by coyotes. “What does it say about our industry,” he wondered, “if it depends on a kind of indentured servitude?” He raised money to distribute electricity-free radios so that farmers and coops could tune in to daily broadcasts of realtime price information, noting, “information has become one of the world’s most powerful forms of international currency.” The pilot program in Rwanda was successful enough to spark a series of collaborations. In 2005, USAID funded a project to produce a weekly radio program on topics relevant to farmers, including weather and health. In March 2013, the Black Earth Project launched, proposing to use biochar as a soil amendment. If successful, it could lead to the world’s first carbon-negative coffee.

The morning session concluded with David Griswold, president of Sustainable Harvest Coffee Importers. The company’s signature event, Let’s Talk Coffee (LTC), has come to be seen as one of the industry’s premier collaborative events. Now in its 11th year, LTC is held in producing countries and the majority of attendees are producers. The purpose is to link coffee growers with buyers. “The beautiful thing is how much business gets done,” said Griswold. The event began with a relatively modest goal: To help producers understand what “quality” meant to buyers, but it evolved quickly to serve larger purposes, and to underpin Sustainable Harvest’s “relationship coffee” model. In recent years it has become a hub for major conversations about system issues facing the specialty industry, including financing, climate change, and coffee leaf rust. “Skype and email can only get you so far,” said Griswold. “There is no substitute for sitting down and breaking bread together.” And all signs indicate it’s been a boon for Sustainable Harvest’s business: In the last 10 years, the company has grown from having 50 to 500 clients.

The Entrepreneurial Spirit

From collaboration, the theme of day turned to innovation with a series of talks highlighting entrepreneurial projects related to coffee. Keith Gehrke, the owner and lead designer at Able Brewing Company, discussed how a modest plan to make reusable Chemex filters for his cafe evolved into the successful launch of a new company that has been embraced by baristas and specialty roasters across the country. With the help of a Kickstarter campaign, Gehrke was able to raise $155,000—enough to roll out production on a new version of his stainless steel filters and a new ceramic brewer. Gehrke’s message seemed to be that relentless, fastidious attention to perfecting his design (“I’ve always wanted to make it the best it can be”) and to core principles (all of Able’s materials—including the molds—are made in the U.S.) led to unexpected success. He got a round of applause when he revealed that the largest buyer for his entirely made-in-America coffee brewers is located in China.

“Imagine how powerful your waste streams really are.” That was was the challenge put forward by Alejandro Velez, the co-founder of Back to the Roots. Velez and his partner started the company—growing gourmet mushrooms using spent coffee grounds—out of Velez’ frat house at Berkleley in 2009. Demoing the mushrooms at farmer’s markets, the entrepreneurs realized they had stumbled onto something much richer than just a high-margin business idea. Consumers were fascinated by the process and were clearly excited to tring growing mushrooms themselves. Back to the Roots had tapped into a powerful desire to know how food grows and where it comes from. The company has now expanded to produce mushroom-growing kits. A small, countertop fishtank that upcycles fish waste to grow herbs is being introduced this year. “We discovered that we can make money and do good,” said Velez.

Entrepreneur Alex Whitmore, the founder of Somerville-based Taza Chocolates, explained the growth of craft chocolates. His presentation about his Mexican-style, bean-to-bar company included enough echoes with speciality coffee to feel almost jinxy—among them the realization that to ensure excellent flavors, Taza needed to work with growers on processes including fermentation and drying technique. Taza buys cacao directly from farmers, like many specialty roasters, and has begun issuing an annual transparency report modelled on one created by Counter Culture Coffee—a reminder of the power of the speciality industry to lead other craft food sectors by example.

Examining Sacred Cows: Traceability and Microlot Premiums

Other presentations of the afternoon focused on innovations and changes in the speciality market. Arthur Karuletwa of Starbucks and Matthew Hodges of GeoCertify raced through a presentation about a Starbucks initiative to roll out a sophisticed traceability tracking system (which will eventually allow consumers to scan barcodes on their cups to access information, photos, videos, and stories about the farm where the coffee was grown). The project has been road-tested in Ethiopia, and has led to the first-ever producer-traceable coffee availabel through the ECX—the company is tracing 100,000 bags per month, mostly from Sidama. Hodges explained that it was critical to test the system through a complex, existing market structure like the ECX. “It tells us we can pass traceable coffee through different sturctures, too, like direct trade and auctions.” It was an important presentation for the insight it gave into an industry leader’s thinking about the increasing value of traceability—not only for the chain of custody, but to consumers. Making traceability data accessible to customers, Karuletwa said, “validates sustainability claims.” It hasn’t always been obvious that consumers needed those claims validated, so it’s interesting to see Starbucks moving in this direction.

From cowboy myths, Kim Elena Ionescu, buyer and sustainability manager for Counter Culture Coffee, turned to recent research by Counter Culture that indicates quality-focused roasters may be peddling myths about microlots to their customers. Many roasters imply—if not state outright—that the premiums customers are paying for great coffee (e.g., higher-end microlots) are directly tied to improvements in quality of her life for coffee growers and their communities. Yet virtually no data exists on whether this is true. It’s come to be one of the sacred cows of the super-speciality sector. “We imply, suggest, and sometimes flat out declare that higher rices benefit coffee growers—but how do we define ‘benefit’?” asked Ionescu. Counter Culture decided to survey a sample of growers. They worked with a preexisting coop program that pays out quality incentives to invidual members for especially high-scoring microlots. The goal of the survey was to understand how growers felt about the premium program and what the added money was doing. Overall, growers had a positive impression of microlot premiums, even those that hadn’t received them. They felt it recogonized the hard work being done by farmers. But farmers also felt the premiums were awarded randomly (no one had received a premium more than once in five years), and they all wanted clearer instructions on how to produce microlots. This finding was especially troubling to Ionescu, who said, “Quality isn’t supposed to be a moving target. We should be able to give them clear instructions. Success should be repeatable.”

In phase two of the research, this time in Columbia, 125 growers in three regions were surveyed. They had all received a premium sometime between 2010 and 2013. Growers in this survey were asked questions about how the premium had impacted their farms and their lives. They reported a number of positive impacts: that quality was one of theirs competitive advantages and a sense of control over quality. What the survey didn’t find perhaps more important than what it did: First, there was no evidence that quality is improving over time. Second, overall volumes are also not going up, which indicates that the extra income to farmers is not being reinvested or that reinvestments are not working as well as they should be. It also revealed that the mumer one area of investment is fertilizer. (Leaf rust hit hard in this region in 2009, so this may have skewed the data.) Ionescu reported that “one thing came up again and again”—growers appreciated the extra income from premiums, but they wanted to know how to increase the volume of coffee being accepeted for premiums. Clips of interviews with growers all echoed a similar message: The premium is nice, it makes my effort worthwhile, but it’s not going to change my life. “If we had another option,” said one grower, “we would take it.” Another said, “The premium doesn’t cover my costs.” Ionescu concluded: “We have a volume issue. If growers are selling 10-40% of their coffee at a premium, there’s no way that is going to be transformative.” Counter Culture’s research indicates that price premiums for microlots are an important way to identify motivated producers and to reward them. But, Ionescu concluded, “Price is not the only mechanism we should be using here. It builds a foundation of trust. We need to use price as a starting point for conversation about real quality.”

Gateway Coffee: Craig to Jackson to Joe

The day ended with the presentation of new market research conducted by SCAA into consumer attitudes aout specialty. Following up on focus groups from last year, a diverse group of consumers kept “coffee blogs” that documented their relationship with coffee. Three of the participants, Craig, Jackson, and Joe, were highlighted in video interviews. Tracy Ging reported that the survey helped clarify a key fact about specialty coffee drinkers: They don’t emerge into the world fully formed. Most drinkers begin their relationship with coffee at Starbucks or Peets, with sweet drinks. Some never leave this phase, but others evolve curiousity about coffee and begin to explore other options or other kinds of drinks. Craig was sort of an advanced adopter of specialty coffee, “I just cannot make coffee as good as what I get out in a café, “he said. “No matter how hard I try, how much I read.” He described being basically loyal to one brand, “I like to go where I know where I’m getting.” Jackson was more advanced in his vocabulary and knowledge of coffee; he described “graduating” from Starbucks and Peets to drinking, now, “mostly Blue Bottle, but I hear about these other places opening and I think I might like to try them.” Joe, on the other hand, described himself as an “ethusiast” who began with cappuccinos and has since “evolved” to drinking mostly espresso. All three taste as the primary thing that made their specialty coffee habit worthwhile. But they also all touched on the issue of social/environmental responsbility. For Jackson, Craig, and Joe, social responsibility was almost “a flavor attribute”—it was contiguous with a sense of quality. Yet all three also struggled to find the words to describe exactly what this meant to them. They had a sense that their coffee was “better” than other coffee, but couldn’t really say how or why.

What does all of this tells us about the specialty consumer? Ging’s message was mainly that the speciality industry ignores or poo-poos the “gateway” coffee companies at its own peril. “We need to expand our view of what specialty is to include “gateway” brands, which is where most specialty drinkers start. You have to be nice to the adopters,” she said. They are where the advanced specialty consumer begins. She also concluded, “Consumers are uniformly confused by the language of specialty coffee: Altitudes, origin, direct trade, small batch roasting, etc. It’s clear we don’t need new words, or more words—we need better explanations.” Reiterating the theme of the journey consumers make from “adopter” to “enthusiast,” Ging emphasized that all good journeys require guides. Craig, Jackson and Joe all indicated that the most trusted guides on their journeys were baristas. “If people are starting to drink coffee younger, and they are starting with brands like Starbucks, the industry is poised for growth,” said Ging. “Their price sensitivity is really high – they can go higher, but they are asking us to guide them.”

Hanna Neuschwander is a freelance writer and the author of Left Coast Roast, a guidebook to artisan and influential coffee roasters on the west coast. Her writing about coffee and food has appeared in publications including Travel + Leisure, Edible Seattle, Portland Monthly, and the Oregonian, among others. She has presented about coffee-related topics at everywhere from San Francisco to Boston. She is also the managing editor of Democracy & Education, a scholarly journal about two things she thinks are important. It is published by the Lewis & Clark Graduate School of Education and Counseling, where she is director of communications.

In its fifth year, Symposium began with a quick exegesis on the meaning of the word “symposium”: From the Greek, sym = together, pos = drink, ium = setting, or, as director Peter Giuliano put it, “It’s about sitting around drinking together.”

Indeed. A short introductory lesson from Giuliano suggested caffeine—as a catalyst for connectivity—might, actually, make us smarter. In a short video, Giuliano interviewed an expert from USCD’s Department of Psychiatry, who argued, “Connectivity between different areas of the brain changes with caffeine… caffeine creates modes of connection.” Giuliano pointed to research on computer networks that suggests when the possible number of connections in a neural net are increased, “there will be sudden leaps of intelligence.” Caffeine creates connections at the infinitesimally small level of neural activity, while coffee generally brings people together for the exchange of ideas on grander social scales.

The historic Harvard Club in Boston, with its chandeliers, rich carpeting, and showy Corinthian columns, was a fitting setting for the presentation of big ideas writ small, very small. Day one of Symposium was all about fungi and genetics—a crash course in the basics of leaf rust, genotypes, and biodiversity at the microscopic level.

The program presented a carefully structured sequence of lectures to help the audience understand the basics of coffee leaf rust’s biology and etiology, using the crisis as a catalyst for broader discussion about the role of coffee genetics and research. The day ended with clarion calls to consider the importance of genetic diversity for the future of the industry, precisely because of the central role diversity plays in combating diseases like Coffee Rust, and in creating the nuanced flavors on offer all day at numerous coffee breaks (graciously served by members of the Barista Guild of America).

Pests like Rust are in part such a dire threat because commercially produced coffee comes from a very small group of plants with limited genetic diversity, which reduces plants’ ability to respond to changes in its environment. The majority of cultivated arabica is highly susceptible to pests and disease because it has a relative small genetic arsenal at its disposal. Aaron Davis, Head of Coffee for the Kew Botanical Gardens, which has done extensive research to locate and identify the world’s coffee species, pointed out that less than 1% of the genetic variance of the coffee genus exists on cultivated farms. We know by now that rust has spread in part because the environments where coffee is grown have changed and become more favorable for to its life cycle (though as rust expert Mary Catherine Aime of Purdue University pointed out in her overview of rust, we are missing crucial knowledge about how rust reproduces). Commercially produced coffee doesn’t have a lot of available genetic resources to “escape” the infections. “Many problems in coffee are due to limitations in arabica genetics,” said SCAA’s science expert, Emma Bladyka, before teeing up the question of the day: “But how did arabica come to be at genetic disadvantage? What are the threats? What we can do?”

What follows are detailed reports on the day’s presentations.

The Inevitability of Pests

All crops suffer pests, pointed out plant pathologist Steve Savage. Though massive outbreaks of disease can threaten the coffee industry’s long-term future, they are unlikely to cause the death of a million people (as the potato famine did in Ireland in the mid-1800s), or the complete collapse of the industry (as could happen with bananas if a newly emergent disease is able to jump the Atlantic). It’s not to any disease’s advantage to destroy its host, but Savage points out that any time a wild plant is turned into a cultivated crop, we artificially narrow the definition of how much disease is acceptable in the population. Over time, humans have developed many options to combat plant diseases: Help affected plants to escape the weather (i.e., move them to new cultivation zone), create artificial weather environments (like controlled climate hoop houses), use fungicides, or focus on plant breeding. Though it’s not always possible to find a genetic solution to a disease problem, coffee is unique among fruit crops in that it is planted from seed (e.g., it’s not cloned), which increases the possibilities for genetic solutions. Meanwhile, many crops in the world—European grapes, potatoes, wheat—are only able to be cultivated on a large scale because of fungicides. Coffee may eventually be one of them.

Coffee and Rust

Rusts, a type of fungi that relies on a host plant (“obligate pathogens”), are not unique to coffee—they have co-evolved with nearly any food crop you can imagine and have troubled humans since ancient times. Ancient Romans had a working understanding of agricultural disease and made sacrifices to appease the god Robigus, who was understood to influence a rust that infected wheat. Technically, we’re related to rust: Fungi are sisters to animals, both of which are heterotrophs (meaning we have to capture our own food). Mary Catherine Aime of Purdue University presented data on the life cycle of rusts generally, which are important to understand if novel efforts are going to be undertaken to interrupt the rust epidemic. Rusts—and there are 8000 different species of them—have one of the most complicated life cycles of all fungi, occurring in five stages. Crucially, rusts alternate hosts, beginning their life on a single leaf, then spreading spores via wind. Spores are carried to alternate hosts (i.e., a plant other than coffee). This second stage of the rust life cycle (the uredinial stage) is where mass epidemics occur. The spores reproduce asexually (but prolifically) and travel back to their original host, the coffee plant. Each spore can generate hundreds of thousands of new spores. If rust takes hold early in the growing season, it can decimate a population. Eventually, an environmental cue near the end of the growing season (e.g. changing temperatures and rainfall) tells the rust to stop producing and to go dormant until the next cycle. Dr. Aime pointed out a two crucial holes in our knowledge of rust: No one knows exactly how fertilization occurs in these rusts and no alternating host has been identified.

Next, Alejandro Keller, a fourth generation coffee farmer from Finca Santa Isabel (established in 1899), reported his family’s experience with leaf rust on their organic farm in Guatemala. Keller reported that rust first appeared on the farm in the early 1980s, but that spot applications of a copper fungicide managed the problem. They experimented with planting the rust-resistant cultivar Catimor, but stopped because the quality was inferior. In 2010 and 2011, Guatemala experienced record-breaking rainfall. By the end of the 2011 season, the farm has a major rust outbreak; surrounding farms that were using conventional techniques were also experiencing the problem. In 2012, Keller’s family decided to try an organic approach again. It failed; the farm lost nearly 70% of its production. They are considering switching back to conventional fungicides to combat the problem, which would result in losing organic certification (a three-year process to obtain). For perspective, Keller outlined that Rust has been found in over 70% of the coffeelands of Guatemala (52% of Central America generally), and is present at all altitudes. Most Guatemalan coffee farmers are smallholders, and are especially vulnerable because they don’t have significant capital available to combat the rust outbreaks. It’s expected that it will cost $200 million to spray, replant, and prune to fight Rust in Guatemala and that the resulting drop in production volume will lead to significant job losses across the industry. The government is mobilizing to support farmers (e.g., Anacafe has pledged $2.1 million to distribute fungicides to small farmers and the Ministry of Agriculture is training 600 technicians to help). Keller reported that across Central America, there has been a 15% drop in production in 2012/2013, but that larger declines are coming as hard pruning and replanting affect coming harvest cycles.

(World Coffee Research is hosting an emergency summit on April 18-19 in Guatemala to discuss short-term solutions.)

World coffee prices don’t yet reflect the drop in production caused by Rust, but Keller suggests they will within a year or two. In the short term, solutions include identifying the exact types of fungi causing the outbreaks and learning from the experiences of other countries with rust (like Columbia and Brazil). It may be necessary for the farm to diversify its production to include crops other than coffee. But longer-term solutions are necessary, and that’s where research into coffee genetics may play a crucial role.

The Building Blocks of Life

With rust as a framework for understanding the impact on industry of limited knowledge of coffee genetics, the day switched from the big picture to the very small picture.

Emma Bladyka, SCAA’s Coffee Science Manager, gave the audience a crash course in the building blocks of life—an intro to increasingly technical discussions of coffee genetics.

Genetic variation makes biodiversity possible. The existence of variation makes it more likely that one individual in a population will possess genes suited to new or stressful environments—they helps a species maintain plasticity. “Plants don’t have choices in how they respond to stress,” Bladyka said, “They only have what they are given biologically—the genetics their parents passed to them—and where they are located physically. Plants can’t get up and walk to better circumstances in their individual lifetimes.”

Bladyka explained (to an audience full of furrowed brows), that coffee arabica is allotetraploid, meaning each parent contributes two copies of each chromosome to each child (in humans, each parent contributes only one copy). There are a total of 44 chromosomes passes to each arabica “child”—four copies (two from each parent) of each of 11 chromosomes. From these essential elements, DNA codes for the traits present in each coffee plant. But not every possible trait coded for by DNA is actually expressed by a given plant—each plant has both a genotype (its coded instructions) and a phenotype (what you actually see). “Phenotypic plasticity” is the limited wiggle room available to a given plant for different environments. And humans, of course, intervene constantly in plant’s environments through agricultural practices. Plants generally are limited to a specific range: If a seed lands in a non-advantageous environment, it won’t grow. Bu in some instances a bird, the wind, or other animals (namely, humans) may move a plant over large distances to another well-suited environment, changing the plant’s range.

Just How Much Genetic Diversity Is There in Coffee?

Aaron Davis, the Head of Coffee of the Kew Royal Botanical Gardens, a leader in research about genetic diversity in all kinds of plants, began with surprising fact: As recently as the late 1990s, we had no idea how many coffee species there were.

Kew-sponsored research in Madagascar over the next 15 years helped identify an enormous number of previously unrecorded coffee species, including Coffea richardii (which has the largest cherry in world) and Coffee toshii (which has the smallest). By the end of 2010, the research team had achieved a doubling of the known species diversity of coffee from 60 species to over 100. By examining DNA, a further 20 species previously thought to be unrelated to coffee were reclassified as belonging to the same species. (As an aside, Davis pointed that within the tree of life, all humans are all related to coffee—sharing 50% of our DNA. We share 70% with the common fruit fly.)

The Kew research also confirmed that robusta, C. canephora, and another species called C. eugeniodes are the parents of arabica. Wild forests contain an enormously diverse collection of coffee species and arabica varieties—between 35,000,000 and 195,000,000 coffee plants. Davis asked the audience to compare that with the history of coffee dissemination, in which, within a very few years, there has been a drastic narrowing of genetic variation. For example, all Typica plants descend from a single parent. Less than 1% of the total genetic variance of the species (125 identified) exists on cultivated farms.

In 2006, Kew did research on coffee extinction using a risk assessment model. The study found that nearly 70% of coffee species are in danger of extinction, while 10% are in critical danger (i.e., may go extinct in the next 10 years). The primary threats are land use and climate change. Kew researchers found that a 1°C increase in temperature can affect the taste of coffee; a 2° rise affects yield, and a 3° rise affections survival. (Since 1960, mean annual temperature has risen 1.3°C.) In a much-publicized 2012 study, researchers used models to predict in climate scenarios and found a best-case scenario in which there will be a 65% reduction in the number of bioclimatically suitable locations for wild arabica to grow, and at the worst, an almost 100% reduction by 2080. In reality, forests in South Sudan and Ethiopia are showing signs of stress, but coffee is persisting in forests. In managed forests, it’s possible to both produce coffee and mitigate climate change. Davis reported that at recent meetings in Addis Ababa with leaders, there appears to be the political will to make change—as there should be in a country where one third of GDP derives from arabica exports. Davis summarized with this thought: “Am I confident about mitigating climate change? No. Am I optimistic about it? Yes.”

Preserving Genetic Resources

Up next, coffee breeder Chifumi Nagai of the Hawaii Agriculture Research Center (HARC), admitted that for her, variation is both beautiful and exciting, vexing as it may be to growers and others who rely on uniformity for efficiency.

Nagai explained that the most of our common cultivars originated with two varieties, bourbon and typica. Common natural mutants of these are caturra, maragogipe, mokka, and laurina. Common hybrids, intentionally cultivated by humans, include Mundo Novo, SL 28, and Pacamara. Hybrids with robusta have traits of disease resistance not found in most arabicas, including the popular Catimor cultivar, used throughout Central America, Icatu in Brazil, and Ruiru 11 in Kenya.

Plant breeders are ever on the lookout for mutants that express desirable traits, which can impact taste, disease/pest resistance, the efficient use of water (drought tolerance), commercially important factors like low caffeine or novel bean sizes and shapes, and the uniformity of flowering and ripening. There are dozens of species of coffee to which breeders can look for these traits. In Ethiopia, it’s estimated that there are more than 4000 wild varieties of arabica. Some of the non-arabica species in Africa are: liberica, dewevrei, canephora, racemose, eugenoides, stenophylla, congensis. There are many more identified in Madagascar and Asia.

A critical question for breeders—and the industry as a whole—is how to preserve this diversity. Options range from in situ conservation (i.e., preserving the diversity where it occurs, for example by preserving natural habitats, which is extremely expensive), to ex situ conservation (e.g., seed banks, on-farm conservation), to in vitro methods in which plant tissue culture is kept in preserving solutions (these only last 6 months to 1 year), and cyropreservation (the long-term storage of seeds at very low temperatures). A downside to some of the ex-situ preservation methods is that they are fixed in time and not evolving or adapting.

Nagai highlighted the work of a handful of coffee gene banks around the world. At IAC, in Brazil, breeders are working on new robusta variety development, and arabica cultivars that show rust resistance (such as Icatu) and the absence of caffeine. At CATIE in Costa Rica, which contains over 9,760 accessions, there are over 1000 arabica trees planted on site, all of which originated from Ethiopia. There, researchers have identified genotypes with valuable trains like nematode resistance and vertical morphology. (The now-famous Gesha variety also originated at CATIE). In Madagascar, Kianjavato FOFIFA Station is studying the caffeine content of mascarocoffeea beans; up to 60% of the beans have no caffeine (the taste, so far, is awful). At FOFIFA, field experiments are conducted using large, on-site plantings to study genetics and genomics. Nagai pointed to FOFIFA as an important example of why field.

In discussion, presenters pointed to the fact that the industry has come a long way in a short time. But even within the existing collections of species, researchers don’t have a great idea of all the genetic resources available because they haven’t been thoroughly analyzed. Discussion pointed to the cacao industry as providing a possible model for cross-industry collaboration on diversity preservation. A serious disease that spread rapidly through Central America led to the near loss of the industry. Working together, governments and industry developed new cultivars to get ahead of disease resistance.

The Limits of Arabica

If the discussion weren’t already technical enough for attendees, it took a new turn here. Christophe Montagnon, a coffee breeder with RD2 Vision, encouraged attendees to consider that a successful variety or cultivar has merely succeeded in reducing the concentration of genetic diversity. New varieties generally represent only one part of the original diversity of the parent (this is referred to as mono-lineage), though some varieties embed more parts (called pluri-lineage varieties). F1 hybrids are those that originate between the cross of genetically different parents, achieving maximum diversity within the variety. Bourbon, typica, caturra, and SL-28 are all examples of varieties that have a low amount of variety in the lineage. Multi-lineage varietals generally have higher resistance to diseases such as leaf rust because they are more diverse (because rust is not caused by any one single gene, the more genetic variety in the plant, the higher the likelihood that you’ll have all of the genes necessary for resistance). Both Catimor and Sarchimor contain more genetic diversity than traditional varieties. At the time these cultivars were developed, however, disease resistance was the priority—not quality. Recent research shows it’s possible to select mutations of Catimor and Sarchimors to emphasize better quality.

Research has shown that new varieties can produce up to 58% more in managed forests and 34% more in full sun, with good cup quality, and resistance. In traditional varieties, plasticity (a fancy term for fat content) varies according to altitude. (The higher fat content, the better the quality.) Experimental varietals have developed that have stable, high fat content regardless of altitude. These developments could have major implications for coffee growing regions ravaged by climate change.

But this work takes significant investment. Breeding is a heavy, long-term investment, but with good returns. It’s important not just to invest in the breeding research itself, but also in the technology to distribute successful new breeds. Many great varieties are still stuck in research stations because no provision was made for investment to disseminate the plants. A key to encouraging the necessary investment is protecting the intellectual property of breeders by setting up a legal environment with controls and sanctions. An international framework called UPOV (the International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants) was designed to protect breeders’ rights and encourage the development of new varieties of plants (in the same way the copyright is intended to encourage the creation of new works of art). There are currently 11 registered coffee varieties under UPOV, mostly from Brazil. In discussion, participants questioned whether protections of breeders’ rights were the same as or similar the kind of patents that U.S. companies have taken out, for example, on single genes in corn. Montagnon clarified that the purpose of UPOV is to help compensate breeders for their discoveries, not to interfere with future research involving new varieties.

Environment-Gene Interactions

We know that many factors influence quality: Environment (altitude, rainfall), genetic factors (genotype, gene expression control), and technology (harvest, processing, drying, storage). Most of our efforts so far to understand and manipulate quality have focused on technology. Chalfun-Junior stressed that it’s time to turn attention to both the environment and genetics.

Gene expression is regulated by internal and external factors; in some environments inherent genetic traits are not expressed (for example, if it’s colder, hotter, wetter, or drier than another environment). Environmental factors send chemical messages that the change expression of genes based on the signal they’re getting from the plant. In this presentation, Chalfun-Junior explored one detailed example of how the environment can influence gene expression. He explained research that showed different genes are expression in different amounts given difference in their environment. One example, he showed that a gene controlling sucrose synthase (SUSY) degradation, which is a proxy for cup quality, is expressed differently depending on the altitude at which the plant was grown.

Chalfun-Junior spent considerable time exploring the issue of ripening uniformity (or the lack thereof). Most producers are familiar with the fact that coffee typically ripens at different times, requiring significant investment in high-cost harvesting (and re-harvesting). If the mechanisms of ripening were better understood, it might be possible to control it and bring the cost of production down. One internal element affected by the environment is ethylene, a gaseous plant hormone closely associated with fruit ripening. In 2010, Chalfun-Junior and colleagues studied coffee and different ripening stages and the influence of gene expression linked to ethylene production. They found that under drought conditions, when water is withheld, there was higher expression of the gene implicated in ethylene production. This, in turn, can produce more consistent ripening. The implications of the research indicate that to increase ripening uniformity at harvest time, you may be able to select cultivars that are more sensitive to ethylene and/or cultivars that produce higher amounts of ethylene. Producers may also be able to use the technique of partial root zone drying (withholding water) in irrigated crops to force the natural production of ethylene in a controlled manner during ripening.

The Future of Coffee Genetics

The final presentation of the afternoon tied together the various threads introduced through the day, to make one simple point: More research into coffee genetics is needed, and is needed urgently. Tim Schilling, the executive director of World Coffee Research (WCR, a collaborative research body funded by the specialty coffee industry), described the two-pronged approach WCR is taking to tackle the problem.

Schilling pointed that that there are perhaps, in the world, 30-35 coffee breeders. Coffee is late among commodities to the serious work of breeding—in wheat, soy, rice there are thousands of breeders at work across the globe.

WCR’s inaugural effort is the International Multilocation Variety trial, which is meant to evaluate the performance of 30 different coffee varieties in different environments around the world (20 different countries). The short-term goal of the research is to be able to point to rigorous evidence about varietal performance (in taste, yield, and disease resistance), enabling coffee producers to make informed choices about what varietals to plant. “When we say Variety A produces 10% more,” explains Schilling, “we want you to be able to take it to the bank because we followed rigorous science.” Each variety is repeated four times in a single location, and then again in multiple location. In Brazil, for example, there are six total varieties on trial. They are planted at different altitudes, with different irrigation applications, and at different densities (10,000 vs. 3000 plants per hectare), etc. Schilling’s bank metaphor isn’t entirely metaphorical. WCR has estimated, for example, than a Honduran farmer who was able to replace his crops with a varietal that yielded 10% more, he’d earn $300 more per hectare with no additional inputs. The longer-term goal of the project is to develop new breeding populations, by keeping a finger on the pulse of coffee in a scientific manner on a global scale. The data collection involved will help measure and monitor climate shifts and may provide early warning mechanisms for the outbreak of disease. The research began this year with planting; WCR expects to have early data within two years, and more robust data in 2017.

The second major project of WCR is to make “better breeds.” With new techniques (such as cyropreservation and inexpensive DNA sequencing), WCR is planning to accelerate the documentation of genetic diversity from germplasm collections in research centers around the world. Only a small amount of the genetic diversity in the pool of coffee varieties is currently being utilized and grown commercially today. WCR’s proposal is to tap the species’ diversity using new DNA technology, which could enable breeders to build new and better varietals. WCR’s major partner in this project is CATIE, with a germplasm collection that contains 1000 lines from Ethiopia. They plan to sequence the DNA of all of them. Even five years ago this project would have been impractical—DNA sequencing technology was too expensive. But today, it’s a $200,000 investment.

Schilling envisions that it might be possible to compress the genetic diversity of 1000 lines in 10 or perhaps 50 varieties. Crossing these 50 varieties with well-known varieties that have desirable taste or yield traits and releasing the results to breeding programs in Kenya, Brazil, and other coffee regions (where breeders can test the varietals by traditional selection processes), will likely result in the development of novel cultivars.

Hanna Neuschwander is a freelance writer and the author of Left Coast Roast, a guidebook to artisan and influential coffee roasters on the west coast. Her writing about coffee and food has appeared in publications including Travel + Leisure, Edible Seattle, Portland Monthly, and the Oregonian, among others. She has presented about coffee-related topics at everywhere from San Francisco to Boston. She is also the managing editor of Democracy & Education, a scholarly journal about two things she thinks are important. It is published by the Lewis & Clark Graduate School of Education and Counseling, where she is director of communications.

The coffees selected for this sensory experience were all grown together on Hacienda El Roble, Bucaramanga, Colombia, in a plot that was planted ten years ago from seeds obtained from the research institute Cenicafé. This collection of coffee varieties is small, with only 5-10 representative plants per variety, but has gained some international attention in recent years. Although this is called a ‘variety’ tasting experience, you will notice that we also have a different species and hybrids. We have included these to give the most comprehensive coffee tasting experience. These coffees are of the same crop (harvested in November 2012), processed in the wet method, all with a portable wet mill, dried on raised, shaded beds, and roasted to a light/sample roast level by George Howell Coffee Roasters here in Boston, MA. These coffees have traveled together and have never been treated differently. In this way they allow us remove potential differences due to environment and processing, storage, roasting and shipping. This enables us to taste only the phenotypic differences that exist in their cup profile due to their varying genetic histories.

With limited supply of each sample, we built 4 flights that would each give a similar type of sensory experience. These flights were designed to highlight differences in genetic makeup and examine the taste of different coffee varieties through their genetic histories. They are each arranged in a chronological order, with the oldest variety or species being tasted first, and the newest variety tasted last.

Flight 1

1. C. eugenioides
One of the two parents of C. arabica (with C. canephora).

2. C. arabica Cioccie S6
A traditional/wild type variety from Ethiopia.

3. C. arabica SL-28

A tall variety selected from Bourbons by Scott Labs in Kenya. Widely reported to be an Ethiopian variety selected in Tanzania for its relative drought tolerance, its exact parentage is not commonly known. However, it is considered by many to be a Bourbon-type variety.

4. Timor Hybrid

A spontaneous cross of C. canephora (Robusta) and C. arabica Typica that occurred naturally on the island of Timor. These hybrids were collected in Timor in 1978 and planted on the Islands of Sumatra and Flores shortly thereafter, and since then some changes and mutations have occurred.

Flight 2

1. C. arabica Zeghie
A traditional/wild type variety from Ethiopia.

2. Arabusta
A broad name for crosses between C. arabica and C. canephora (Robusta). There is likely to be much variation between differing Arabusta crosses.

3. C. arabica Mibirizi
It is rumored that Mibirizi is the name of a mission in Rwanda where Bourbon trees from Guatemala were first planted in 1905. Most believe it to be an old Bourbon type variety.

4. C. arabica SL-34
A tall variety selected from Bourbons by Scott Labs in Kenya. Its exact parentage is not widely known, some saying it was a simple Ethiopian selection, others a mutation of Bourbon.

Flight 3

1. C. canephora (Robusta)
One of the two parents of C. arabica (with C. eugenioides).

2. C. arabica Gimma Kaffa
A traditional/wild type variety from Ethiopia.

3. C. arabica Bourbon
This group of tall type C. arabica that naturally developed on Bourbon (now Réunion Island) after being brought to the island from Yemen via the French.

4. C. arabica Villa Sarchi
A dwarf mutation of Bourbon found in Costa Rica released in 1957.

Flight 4

1. C. canephora (Robusta)
One of the two parents of C. arabica (with C. eugenioides).

2. C. arabica Sudan Rumé
A traditional/wild type variety, rumored to originate in South Sudan.

3. C. arabica SL-28
A tall variety selected from Bourbons by Scott Labs in Kenya. Widely reported to be an Ethiopian variety selected in Tanzania for its relative drought tolerance, its exact parentage is not commonly known. However, it is considered by many to be a Bourbon-type variety.

4. C. arabica Colombia
A variety bred mixing various Catimors, released around 1985. It is known to have a resistance to leaf rust. Due to its breeding composition, it is known to be relatively unstable as a variety. In Colombia, it has been popular to replace this variety with Castillo.

Symposium isn’t just a conference. It’s a community that exists to grapple with the most pressing issues of the day. When the Ethiopia Commodity Exchange debuted on the world stage, the first place ECX leaders and coffee professionals came together to debate was Symposium. Cutting edge climate science, consumer research, social and economic policy have been part of Symposium’s commitment to being at the epicenter of important breaking news in coffee.

This year, it’s clear that Hemileia Vastatrix, or Coffee Leaf Rust disease, is at the top of mind for the entire coffee industry. Reports coming out of Central America paint a shocking picture of a huge impact on Specialty Coffee- farms affected by rust are losing huge amounts of their crop to the disease. When something like this happens, rumor and misinformation start to spread. And rumor and information are the enemy of leadership and good decision making.

So, we knew that we needed to dedicate a portion of Symposium to the understanding of Coffee Leaf Rust: what it is, what the impacts of diseases like this are, and what exactly is happening out there. So we reached out into the community.

Steve Savage is a PhD plant pathologist who’s spent the past quarter century understanding agricultural diseases like Coffee Rust and their impacts on agriculture. John Vendeland, a speaker from our inaugural Symposium, told us about Steve, saying there was no better person to give us an overview of agricultural disease history, response, and potential long term solutions. Dr. Savage has prepared for us a talk called Humans vs. Pests – The Long View, putting Coffee Leaf Rust in the larger context of agricultural disease.

To understand Coffee Leaf Rust itself we reached out to Dr. M. Catherine Aime, one of the foremost experts in rust fungi in the United States. Dr. Aime is a mycologist – a scientist specializing in fungus – who has focused her work on the evolution and reproduction of rust fungi, of which Coffee Leaf Rust is one. She confesses a particular fascination with Hemileia – the genus of Coffee Leaf Rust – because of its primitive nature and long history. Obviously, there is nobody better to give us a scientific understanding of Rust itself.

Last, a view from the field. In recent months, the geographical area hardest hit has been Central America. This spring’s harvests have been hit hard, and the impacts on next year’s crop may be even more dramatic. To hear the real story, we reached out to Alejandro Keller, a coffee farmer and exporter from Guatemala. Alejandro has managed his family’s organic farm for decades, and is a roaster and exporter. He sits on the boards of ANACAFE and PROCAFE, and is therefore uniquely qualified to give us an agricultural, economic, and political review of the impact of rust throughout Central America.

We’ve designed Symposium’s Coffee Leaf Rust session to be a comprehensive and informative set of lectures, but of course nothing is better than experiencing this kind of information in the company of other committed coffee professionals, as subject for discussion and solucion-building. The ancient Greeks called that kind of interaction symposium, and so do we.

Learn more about this session

This is an excerpt from a session at Symposium 2012 titled Media Perspectives on Specialty Coffee. To view accompanying videos, please visit the Symposium Video Gallery.

This is an excerpt from a session at Symposium 2012 titled Media Perspectives on Specialty Coffee. To view accompanying videos, please visit the Symposium Video Gallery.

In this session, What’s Cool About Coffee: Media Perspectives on Engaging and Expanding Interest, we welcome Julie Wolfson, a Freelance Writer, Oliver Strand, Food Writer, and Melissa Allison, Business Reporter as panelists.

This video segment includes a preface from Cho along with video interviews conducted with the panelists prior to this event. Additional videos will be made available in the coming days with the on-site interviews conducted with the panel at Symposium 2012 in Portland, OR.