Coffea stenophylla: A forgotten bean that could save coffee from extinction

Caffeine production is likely difficult in the face of a drier climate. Caffeine is present in the plant as a pesticide. Insects are a much bigger problem in wet climates over dry.

Having grown up in a wet climate (Chicago) but now living in a dry one (Utah) I can say that finding a droubt tolerant species which concerns itself with pesticide production may be difficult. The same water which coffee relies on is the same stuff pests rely on to reproduce. My mother was from Utah, and she always lamented at the small size of her flowers growing up in Chicago. They are much larger in Utah because they can get big without insects eating them.

(I say all this as a point of interest, but I don't drink coffee myself.)

As a daily coffee drinker I wouldn't mind less caffeine in coffee. I drink coffee for its flavour (and have tried dozens of different coffees from many different roasters). I have tried some decafs but they just taste different and generally much flatter. They also behave very strangely in my espresso machine, requiring a much finer grind to sustain brewing pressure. From my limited understanding of decaf processes, they all remove more than just caffeine, so the effect on flavour is unavoidable.

The biggest reason decaf brews, tastes, and grinds so different is the processing essentially causes the beans to expands (so you can extract the caffeine out of the center of the very dense, green coffee) and then you need to dehydrate them back to the proper moisture content for roasting. You take a green coffee that is previously extremely dense and non-porous, and make it much much more porous. This leads to roasting difficulities and brittleness when grinding which seems to lead to fines.

I'd agree, less caffeine in the bean without decaffinating would lead to a better tasting coffee (if you want the lesser caffeine).

Huh. As an avid home coffee roaster, this is interesting to learn. I find that decaf also really struggles to “crack” when roasting, and emits way less smoke. I guess that’s because there’s perhaps nothing left to really crack anymore?