First the bad news. The two types of coffee most of us drink – Arabica and Robusta – are at great risk in the era of climate change.
Now the good news. Farmers in one of Africa’s largest coffee-exporting countries are growing an entirely different variety that is more resistant to the heat, drought and disease that global warming is ravaging.
For years they just mix it in bags of cheap robusta. This year they are trying to sell it to the world under its own real name: Liberica excelsa.
“Even if there’s too much heat, it does just fine,” says Golooba John, a coffee farmer near the town of Zirobwe in central Uganda. Since his robusta trees have succumbed to pests and diseases in recent years, he has replaced them with Liberica trees. On his six acres, Mr. John now has only 50 Robustas and 1,000 Libericas.
He drinks it too. He says it’s more aromatic than robusta, “more flavorful.”
Catherine Kiwuka, a coffee specialist at the National Agricultural Research Organization, called Liberica excelsa “a neglected coffee variety.” She is part of an experiment to introduce it to the world.
If it works, it could hold important lessons for small coffee farmers elsewhere importance of wild coffees in a warming world. Liberica excelsa is native to tropical Central Africa. It was cultivated for a while in the late 1800s before fading away. Then came the ravages of climate change. Growers have brought Liberica back to life.
“With climate change, we should be thinking about other species that can support this industry globally,” said Dr. Kiwuka.
At the moment the goal is to grow high quality Liberica excelsa for export.
Volcafe, a global coffee trading company, hopes to ship up to three tons this year to specialty roasters abroad, including the UK and the US.
While Arabica and Robusta are the two most commonly cultivated coffees, more than 100 varieties grow in the wild. One Liberica variety has been cultivated in Southeast Asia for a century.
Another variety is Liberica excelsa, which is native to the lowlands of Uganda. Compared to robusta, which is also native to Uganda and the dominant coffee variety grown in the region, Liberica takes longer to mature and produce fruit.
Libericas tower over robustas. Each tree can grow eight meters high, so farmers have to hoist themselves up bamboo ladders to harvest them. Or else they must prune the trees so that their branches grow wide and not up.
About 200 farmers grow Liberica in small bags, sell it along with their robusta crop to local merchants and receive robusta prices. Dr. Kiwuka said she felt the farmers had been “cheated”.
Liberica has a stronger aroma and higher quality coffee, she said; farmers should have received higher prices.
In 2016, she invited Aaron Davis, a coffee scientist from the Royal Botanical Gardens in Kew, England, to Zirobwe. He was skeptical at first. He had tasted Liberica elsewhere and thought it was like “vegetable soup,” he said.
But then, the next day, he ground Zirobwe’s beans in his hotel room. Yes, a coffee researcher always takes a portable grinder with him on his travels.
“Actually, this isn’t bad,” he recalled thinking. It had potential.
Dr. Davis is no stranger to the risks of coffee. His research has shown that more than half of the world’s wild coffee species are threatened with extinction due to climate change and deforestation.
Dr. Kiwuka and Dr. Davis worked together. They would encourage farmers to improve the harvesting and drying of their Liberica crop. Instead of throwing them in with the robusta beans, they sold the Libericas separately. If they met certain standards, they would get a higher price.
“In a warming world, and in an era plagued by supply chain disruption, Liberica coffee could re-emerge as a major crop plant,” they wrote in Naturethe scientific journal, last December.
It is already an important crop in the orchards of Deogratius Ocheng.
When the rains are sparse, like last year, his two hectares of robusta suffered. The leaves withered. The cherries are not well formed. The same problems affected much of Uganda, where robusta is the dominant species.
According to the Uganda Coffee Development Authority, exports this year are expected to be lower than last year. Drought and pests are to blame. If he had only relied on robusta, Mr. Ocheng said, “I would have been in extreme poverty.”
Fortunately, he still had two hectares of Liberica.
How does Liberica excelsa taste when dried, peeled and roasted? Dr. Davis called it “smooth” and “easy to drink”. It is heavy in aroma, lower in caffeine than robusta.
“It’s Beaujolais nouveau,” he said. “It’s very soft.”
Musinguzi Blanshe contributed reporting from Kampala.