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Coffee in Crisis

bbc.com

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Re: Coffee in Crisis

#21

Post by nightski »

sritch wrote: post #10
Nacraile wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know, some people drink coffee because they like the flavour, not because they need caffeine :P (As a matter of fact, I consider caffeine to be an undesirable side-effect of delicious coffee...) Coffee isn't the only natural source of caffeine, and yes, it can also be made synthetically.

It's especially unfortunate because decaf coffee is usually gross.

I've found decaf made with the Aeropress is actually surprisingly good. I usually only have a single cup of caffeinated and then follow up with a few cups of decaf.

Re: Coffee in Crisis

#22

Post by unprepare »

VeejayRampay wrote: post #3

Isn't there a way to produce synthetic caffeine? I mean, there's been a shift recently for nicotine and the market for e-cigs, I'm sure we can somehow find a way to do the same for caffeine.

Are we producing synthetic nicotine for e-cigs?

I am of the understanding that we currently produce liquid nicotine from tobacco leaves, and use the liquid nicotine for electronic cigarettes.

We certainly can already produce caffeine independently of producing coffee, and while that may be a major reason for coffee production, i doubt many coffee drinkers would be satiated with a caffeine pill every morning instead of their cup of coffee.

Kind of akin to seeing the wine grapes are going away and saying, well we can produce alcohol independently of wine - its true, but it wont satisfy wine lovers.

Re: Coffee in Crisis

#24

Post by DarkTree »

kokey wrote: post #15

It's strange that an article about the potential scarcity of Arabica doesn't once mention the country where most Arabica is grown: Brazil. Not only that, the expectations have been improving because of improved conditions this year: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-05-21/coffee-dec...

It does seem like the article may have conveniently evaded that news. However, that doesn't mean there isn't a looming threat to the coffee supply.

The fact that Brazil may have an exceptionally good year, only means that it is likely to have a less-exceptional year after that, due to regression to the mean. If the climate does start to negatively impact the more tertiary coffee growing regions, Brazil will not be able to bolster the entire coffee demand.

Also: I can only assume that growing overall population = higher demand for coffee

Re: Coffee in Crisis

#25

Post by knn »

L8D wrote: post #23

In accordance with Betteridge's Law of Headlines[1] the answer is no. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headline... I don't know how people do links and stuff on hacker news

Thanks for the link, haha. Sensationalist title.

Re: Coffee in Crisis

#26

Post by alceufc »

autotune wrote: post #19

Is it not possible to grow coffee plants using vertical farming? It sound ideas like this => http://cargocollective.com/dellabosca/Vertical-Coffee-Farm are going to need to become a reality in the future if we can't stop climate change, where it can protect the plants from heavy rainfalls and allow farmers to control their growth.

A challenge would be that coffee trees have very deep roots [1].

[1] http://www.fao.org/docrep/006/ad219e/AD219E05.htm

Re: Coffee in Crisis

#27

Post by [deleted] »

a3n wrote: post #2

This page made my laptop scream. It never stopped trying to load something. I run ABP, perhaps that's the "fault?" I also tried to find a sensible place to point that out to the BBC, but nothing was obviously (to me) the right place.

[deleted]

Re: Coffee in Crisis

#28

Post by ghostly_s »

a3n wrote: post #2

This page made my laptop scream. It never stopped trying to load something. I run ABP, perhaps that's the "fault?" I also tried to find a sensible place to point that out to the BBC, but nothing was obviously (to me) the right place.

No issues here in Firefox. I even disabled uBlock Origin and didn't notice any issue. Not about to allow flash, though...

Re: Coffee in Crisis

#29

Post by freels »

strictnein wrote: post #16
VeejayRampay wrote: post #3

Isn't there a way to produce synthetic caffeine? I mean, there's been a shift recently for nicotine and the market for e-cigs, I'm sure we can somehow find a way to do the same for caffeine.

To answer your question: yes, we already create synthetic caffeine. It's widely used in soda, energy drinks, etc.

From what I understand, a lot of this caffeine is sold to soda makers as a byproduct of the decaffeination process used on coffee beans.

Does this mean the end of soda as well?

Re: Coffee in Crisis

#30

Post by DanBC »

freels wrote: post #29
strictnein wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To answer your question: yes, we already create synthetic caffeine. It's widely used in soda, energy drinks, etc.

From what I understand, a lot of this caffeine is sold to soda makers as a byproduct of the decaffeination process used on coffee beans. Does this mean the end of soda as well?

I'd love a good cola that has no caffiene. (Although I also don't want it to have sugar either.)

There's a niche in the market for somethig that tastes nice, is cold, isn't full of sugar and is not caffeinated.

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