Baubos Coffee

Craft coffee (which I will also refer to as specialty coffee throughout this article) often prides itself on its quality and community in the face of large, corporate coffee shops. The recent wave of labor strikes by workers at Starbucks locations throughout the United States has allowed craft coffee to easily juxtapose itself as a small, morally good alternative to large corporate structures. Moreover, the COVID-19 pandemic allowed for the further demonstration of the resiliency of the craft coffee community, especially among worker-owned businesses. A recent report found that worker-owned businesses were only half as likely to have experienced significant revenue loss during the pandemic lockdowns compared to typical corporate business structures.

The picture that I have painted of the small, resilient craft coffee community is not complete — and it is not accurate. Craft coffee shops are, just like Starbucks and Folgers, participants in a large and complicated global supply chain. While corporations typically buy their coffee via the C-market (or, the central market where arabica coffee is bought and sold) and craft roasters typically purchase their product via smaller green coffee importers that have contracts with different farms, both of these purchasing choices are just one small link in a global supply chain and therefore they are both vulnerable to the same supply chain weaknesses.

One of the most pertinent weaknesses in the global coffee supply chain is that of climate destruction. Despite climate destruction having been linked to industrialized processes as early as 1938 and the first climate change model being presented in 1967, the consequences of man-made climate destruction failed to enter the zeitgeist until the age of the internet. Current climate science tells us that some regions of the world are far more vulnerable to climate destruction than others, one data point to support this idea is that of crop loss in countries such as Brazil, Vietnam, Indonesia, and Colombia. If you’re a regular coffee drinker, you may recognize that all of the aforementioned countries are some of the biggest producers of coffee in the current arabica-driven market.

A quick aside on coffee cultivars and the coffee market:

There are around 120 different species of coffee plant that grow in jungles around the world, however humans have only cultivated about 3 of these species for global consumption. The arabica plant, which is originally from Ethiopia, makes up around 60% of the global coffee supply as of 2023 and tends to have a more consistently high taste rating than other varietals. Robusta (which is more accurately called canephora) is the second most common variety and makes up about 38% of the market, and our soon-to-be-discussed unsung hero, liberica, currently holds 2% of the total market.

Check out more about coffee plants here

Unfortunately while the coffee industry was selectively breeding and cultivating Coffea arabica (the scientific name for the coffee market’s most popular bean) for optimal flavor and growth, the industry did not anticipate the rapid escalation of the impact of climate destruction on the delicate arabica plant. While Coffea canephora is more resilient to rough climates, the arabica plant prefers high elevation subtropical climates with temperatures ranging from 64°–70°F (18°C–21°C). As temperatures continue to rise and deforestation continues to dwindle the world’s rain forests, the looming supply chain crisis comes into focus. In 2022 alone the Brazilian government reported that coffee crop failure led to the country producing 7 million fewer bags for C-market trading than they had forecasted.

This crop failure has, in the short-term, led to increased coffee prices both on the global market and at the local level. Craft coffee shops are especially vulnerable to these price increases as they lack the bargaining power of their larger competitors and often have a higher bottom line than chain stores. The long-term consequences of climate destruction on the coffee industry are far more grim than price increases, including outcomes as devastating as extinction of species and the collapse of the coffee supply chain. Despite being the world’s most cultivated coffee plant Coffea arabica is currently on the endangered species list, along with 75 other coffee plant species.

So, what then must the industry do to preserve species and stave off the collapse of the supply chain as a whole? The most promising answer lies within a species of coffee native to West and Central Africa: Coffea liberica.

On the history of Coffea liberica:

While some absolutely foolish articles refer to liberica as a “Hipster bean”, liberica is not new on the coffee scene. While indigenous to a range of African countries from Liberia to Uganda to Angola, this variety was naturalized and commercialized in the Philippines in the 1740’s and proved to be more resilient against the coffee rust blight of the 19th century than either arabica or robusta. However, once this blight had passed the coffee farmers of the 20th century deemed that the already widely cultivated arabica and robusta plants were satisfactory to meet global consumtion needs. Yet, this trend did not stop farmers in Uganda, South Sudan, and the Philippines from continuing to cultivate the crop on a small scale; a decision that may save the future of the coffee industry.

Read more about amazing Coffea liberica research here

What Coffea liberica lacks in current market share, it more than makes up for in size. Liberica trees can grow to up to 20m (66ft) tall, 4 times as tall as arabica trees and twice as tall as robusta trees. On farms in Africa liberica plants (specifically of the excelsa variety) have been shown to produce up to 1000kgs of coffee beans per hectare, nearly twice as much as both arabica and robusta plants. Not to mention the size of the beans themselves, which are more similarly sized to cardamom pods than a roasted coffee bean. They are also incredibly resistant to disease and are one of the few coffee plant species not listed as endangered or at-risk of becoming endangered.

So, what’s stopping us from embracing these larger-than-life supply chain saviors? Just like with every other problem: it’s us. Well, more accurately, it’s our current standards for coffee compared to how we have cultivated Coffea liberica.

I don’t believe in bad coffee — only bad coffee cultivation, roasting, and preparing practices. We can’t expect a single plant to save our supply chain when we’re a bunch of impatient, inept jerks.

The two major barriers to more wide-spread adoption of liberica production and consumption are time and current consumer preferences. Coffee is the most traded food commodity on the global stage and more than 2 billion cups of coffee are consumed daily. Having such a large market share means that coffee production requires both speed and volume of product to be able to meet demand. Both arabica and robusta trees take approximately three years to begin producing fruit, but liberica trees take five years to reach maturity. Therefore, even if large coffee farms were to begin producing crops as I type this, we wouldn’t see a shift in the coffee market until the year 2028 (shout out to people reading this in 2028 and beyond, please cite this in your ‘Craft Coffee Through the 2020’s’ article or whatever). While in current production practices waiting nearly twice as long for a tree to bear fruit seems like an impossible ask, climate destruction models predict that 50% of the coffee belt (the area of the world that is most suited to growing arabica and robusta coffee) could be rendered inhospitable to the crops by 2050 — so, perhaps five years of waiting for a crop that can stave off a major supply chain crisis isn’t so bad.

We can’t talk about liberica without talking about the main issue: consumer expectations. The widespread adoption of arabica beans has altered the way that the global coffee market anticipates their morning brew will taste. Any craft coffee lover who has tried to convince their friend who only drinks Starbucks caramel macchiatos to try anything else knows the pain of trying to introduce someone to a new flavor profile — and that’s just getting someone to pivot to a different arabica bean and preparation. While coffee has a beautiful array of flavors, generally arabica is categorized as being sweeter in flavor and generally expected to have notes of chocolate (an expectation fueled by a majority of the world’s coffee being grown in Brazil). However, liberica has a much more floral-forward aroma with ripe stone fruit flavors. Much like any other coffee, when roasted and/or brewed poorly the flavor notes of liberica get nasty (think vegetal and overly smoky). Currently there is no global standard for how liberica should taste, so it does not benefit from Q Grading and other international standards that drive industry best practices.

So, here we are, craft coffee friends. We sit at a miserable precipice, staring at a miserable future. Just a small part of a global supply chain on the brink of disaster. In this rare moment, we are on equal ground with the big corporate coffee buyers — climate destruction impacting our operations as much as it impacts theirs. Yet sometimes, there is power in being small. Specialty coffee has driven industry trends in the past, just look at the manner in which the rise of specialty coffee shops forced Starbucks to start selling more high-end, craft options, and the manner in which the small yet mighty craft community led the future of coffee through the pandemic. Craft coffee has long prioritized seeking out farms that demonstrate superior sustainability and labor practices, and can continue this prioritization through the liberica market. By seeking out farmers that already cultivate these plants green coffee importers and roasters can learn from the years of knowledge that these farmers have gained. They can work together, with their full supply chain, towards a standard of liberica taste and best practices for preparation.

However, we have to be careful. We need to normalize production practices with liberica trees that reduce deforestation and soil erosion; we must avoid the mistakes of the first three waves of craft coffee that exacerbated climate destruction. We need to be patient, and allow for trees to grow and bear fruit and cultivate a standard flavor profile over generations of this growth. We need to be open, and prepare for the coffee of the future to taste differently and have different standards than the coffee of today. We need to change the coffee supply chain before we lose it completely.

Originally published on Medium on January 19, 2023