Coffea arabica lives to awaken another day

It’s not politically correct to look askance at one-night stands in today’s liberated world. But if many generations later, the fruits of such a liaison suffer grievously as a result, activists should not quibble about a re-examination of the issue.

More so if the future of millions of coffee aficionados hinges on just such an intervention. It’s heartening to note, therefore, that the world has woken up, smelled the coffee and realised that Coffea arabica — created by a single casual liaison of C eugenioides and C canephora (Robusta) and aided by the amorality of European botanical gardens ignoring genealogical constrictions when shipping plant cuttings to the colonies — needed to be saved from itself.

Scientists need to be commended, in particular, for rallying forthwith to prevent C arabica’s wild cousins back in their true homeland of Ethiopia from dying out before the end of this century, thanks to global warming.

Without these being around to boost the chromosomal mojo of their refined but dangerously inbred relative when the necessity arose, coffee lovers would have to contemplate increasingly insipid brews as commercially produced Arabica runs out of genetic steam. That would then raise the awful prospect of coffee quaffers being forced to shift to tea — a plant with more robust phylogeny — for their caffeine fix.