News

Will you be at the Global Coffee Expo in Seattle this month? So will we. Join us for a Think + Drink Happy Hour, featuring an exclusive tasting of new hybrid varieties; a panel discussion on coffee genebanks; and presentations of student work at the scientific poster session.

A new coffee variety called Starmaya may dramatically shift prospects for coffee producers in the years to come. Starmaya is the first variety of its kind: An F1 hybrid that is propagated by seed, rather than through costly biotechnology. What it could mean for coffee producers is widespread access to an elite class of varieties that could reshape the industry.

Four new countries have committed to participate in the International Multilocation Variety Trial (IMLVT), the largest, collaborative, global coffee research platform and variety exchange in history. Australia, Rwanda, Zimbabwe, and the United States (Hawaii) will all join the trial in 2017, bringing the total number of participating countries to 23.

At the biannual International Conference on Coffee Science, held this year in China’s Yunnan province, the world’s top coffee researchers gathered to share their recent findings. World Coffee Research was there presenting three papers, on coffee’s genetic diversity, climate change, and the relationship between coffee leaf rust and quality.

In a plenary session at the World Coffee Leader’s Forum in Korea, Tim Schilling tackles one of the biggest questions facing the coffee industry.