News and knowledge

Since its inception in 2012, World Coffee Research has worked to establish dozens of trial sites around the world testing both existing and new varieties in different environments, both on research stations and in farmers’ fields. Many of those sites are starting to produce mature harvests, meaning the trees are ready to be evaluated for performance in the field—and in the cup. In 2019, one trial site testing new variety candidates in Costa Rica produced its first production harvest. WCR invited 20 industry cuppers to give feedback on the coffees.

Since 2019, World Coffee Research (WCR) has been a partner in the Maximizing Opportunities in Coffee & Cacao in the Americas (MOCCA) program, which works with coffee and cacao farmers in Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras, and Peru to increase their profitability. The program is financed through the United States Department of Agriculture and implemented by TechnoServe.

Watch the latest "WCR Presents" webinar, with climate and agriculture expert Dr. Walter E. Baethgen of Columbia University's Earth Institute.

WCR is accelerating the creation of coffee varieties to meet the challenges of the 21st century through the launch of a new Latin American Breeding Hub in Honduras.

Until recently, very little was known about the diversity of Yemen’s coffees outside of anecdotes and observation. But in 2014, WCR partnered with Dr. Al Hakimi of S'ana University to explore the diversity of Yemeni coffees as part of a larger analysis of arabica genetic diversity. The study, published in Nature Scientific Reports in January 2020, expanded our knowledge of Yemen coffee's genetic diversity.