

Coffee in Crisis - thomersch_
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20150728-coffee-the-bitter-end-of-our-favourite-drink?ocid=twfut

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kokey
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...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-05-21/coffee-declines-to-
lowest-in-15-months-on-global-supply-outlook)

~~~
DarkTree
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

~~~
yellowapple
> 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.

Isn't that a Monte Carlo fallacy? One outcome in a sequence of tests does not
mean that others are more likely in the future. If you flip a coin and get 10
heads in a row, your likelihood of getting a tails on the next flip (assuming
a perfectly-balanced coin) is still 50%. Brazil's good year may be another
case of climate change for all we know, and could very well persist for
awhile; or, you might be right and next year things will balance out again. We
don't know either way yet.

That isn't to say that we shouldn't be concerned regardless; you're correct in
your observation that having all our figurative, coffee-flavored eggs in one
basket - even if that basket is the size of Brazil - is rarely a good idea.

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debacle
> If you flip a coin and get 10 heads in a row, your likelihood of getting a
> tails on the next flip (assuming a perfectly-balanced coin) is still 50%.

If you flip a FAIR coin, your odds are still 50%. If I flip a coin and get
heads 10 times in a row, I'm betting heads for that 11th flip.

~~~
_0ffh
Yeah, sure, but also the bookie will give you crappy odds on that bet! :)

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autotune
Is it not possible to grow coffee plants using vertical farming? It sound
ideas like this => [http://cargocollective.com/dellabosca/Vertical-Coffee-
Farm](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.

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

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

~~~
yellowapple
So we build deeper farm levels.

Even more conventional greenhouses, however, should help somewhat. I reckon
the point of the parent commenter is less about the _vertical_ nature of such
farms and more about the climate controllability of such farms.

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anthony_romeo
At the same time, demand for coffee is growing rapidly, especially since more
traditionally tea-drinking nations are making the switch to coffee.[1] Maybe
if coffee prices increase significantly we'll see more milk-tea places opening
up and Starbucks incorporating more of its Teavana products at its stores.

[1] [http://time.com/3711436/global-coffee-
increase/](http://time.com/3711436/global-coffee-increase/)

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a3n
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.

~~~
Retra
You could try using Ghostery
([https://www.ghostery.com/en/.](https://www.ghostery.com/en/.)) For me the
page loads slower than most, but not problematically so.

~~~
cpncrunch
Seems to work fine on my MBP. I'm just annoyed by the dumb parallax scrolling
which covers up the title when you're trying to read it. Parallax was cool on
Amigas in the 80s, but today in web pages it's just flashy and annoying.

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VeejayRampay
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.

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Nacraile
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.

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

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noir_lord
Unsurprising when you look at the method they use for removing the caffeine.

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Florin_Andrei
Supercritical CO2 extraction is gross? The solvent evaporates without a trace.

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TheCoelacanth
> For one thing, we can expect coffee to become more of a luxury, with prices
> shooting up by around 25% by 2050 according to Bunn’s calculations

A 25% rise in price over 35 years qualifies as a crisis now?

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L8D
In accordance with Betteridge's Law of Headlines[1] the answer is no.

[1]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headline...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headlines)

I don't know how people do links and stuff on hacker news

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knn
Thanks for the link, haha. Sensationalist title.

