As far as the eye can see, green fields undulate over the hills. The sun burns on the coffee bushes that spread out on both sides of the country road. This year's coffee harvest has just ended in Brazil, and Mariana Jordão pours a handful of dried coffee beans onto a table. She cleans off the beans that are dark and damaged.
- The lighter ones taste better.
She finds another damaged dark bean and picks away.
- They can taste burnt yeast.
Mariana Jordão has just experienced the largest harvest her family's Jordão Coffea Farm has ever produced. But it has required hard work - and a change that changed the farm's way of farming. In fact, the entire coffee industry is facing a shift. It has become increasingly difficult to get decent harvests. Climate change has caused it. It rains when it shouldn't rain and it's drought when it shouldn't be drought. The fact that it has become more difficult to grow coffee will make your morning cup more and more expensive.
- Fewer and fewer will be able to afford to drink good coffee. Most people have to make do with unmixed domestic coffee that only gets worse and worse, says Filip Åkerblom.
He is one of Sweden's leading coffee experts and has been working for twenty years with the industry organization Specialty Coffee Association, which brings together the world's coffee producers, importers and roasters. He runs the cafe Lilla Kafferosteriet, which has become a tourist magnet in Malmö, and has his own roastery in the old locomotive stables at Kirseberg. Every year he travels to Brazil after the harvest to taste the coffee he imports.
DN meets him at a restaurant in Rio de Janeiro, after he returned from the annual tasting in the state of Minas Gerais. It was a disappointment. He believes that climate change will make bad coffee increasingly common. This year, the rain fell in the middle of the harvest, which meant that the freshly picked berries did not get the sun they needed to dry and get the best taste.
- The rain in the middle of the harvest caused it this year. The quality didn't quite reach what I wanted, says Filip Åkerblom.
In Sweden, coffee prices have increased by almost 40 percent in the last four years. This year, prices are expected to drop slightly due to the record harvest in Brazil, but the El Niño weather phenomenon is expected to cause a widespread drought next year, which could be devastating to the harvest. It can become significantly smaller and the quality of the beans deteriorates. In order to make the coffee berries more resistant to climate change, several coffee farms have changed the way they grow. The problem is that it is costly.
- Coffee brands do everything to offset the higher costs. They reduce the packets and mix out the coffee. It is important to be vigilant about what you buy, says Filip Åkerblom.
Brazil is the world's largest coffee producer and accounts for almost half of all arabica coffee produced in the world. Arabica beans are the variety that we mostly drink in Sweden. It is known for its mild, nutty and chocolaty taste.
Brazil's main coffee region is located in the state of Minas Gerais and is called Cerrado Mineiro. The region, which has a protected designation of origin, is the size of Romania and brings together the world's top Arabica growers. The growing conditions are ideal. The area is at an altitude of a thousand meters above sea level, which provides cool nights. The coffee berries ripen slowly and develop the flavors that characterize quality coffee.
The problem is that scientists estimate that the surface of the planet suitable for growing Arabica beans will be halved within fifteen years. Climate change increases the temperature, which forces the crops higher up. But the arabica beans are also very sensitive to frost. Ice formation in the plant's cells kills the berries and, in the worst case, the entire coffee bush. If you move the crops too high up, you will have problems with the cold instead.
The world's second largest coffee producer is Vietnam, which grows almost exclusively robusta beans. That bean is bitterer, earthier and is mostly used to brew cheaper coffee blends. Even those crops have been affected by climate change. Last year, the floods created landslides that destroyed roads in the country's coffee districts, preventing Vietnamese coffee producers from getting their coffee out on time.
Nature is playing tricks on coffee drinkers worldwide, something that became even clearer this summer when Colombia, which is the world's third largest coffee producer, was hit by the strongest earthquake in almost 50 years. Almost 80 percent of Colombian coffee farmers had their homes and drying facilities damaged. This year's harvest from Colombia is expected to be significantly smaller.
The eyes of the world are therefore directed towards Brazil, which after two very bad coffee years is back. The American commodity trading company StoneX has raised the forecast for this year's Brazilian harvest to a record 77.2 million bags. That is almost 24 percent more than last season.
- We are very grateful for this year's harvest, but are already dreading the next one, says Mariana Jordão at Jordão Coffea Farm.
On average, coffee cultivation usually produces 36 sacks of 60 kilos of beans per cultivated hectare. This year, cultivation has yielded over 50 sacks per cultivated hectare. The fact that the harvest has increased by almost 40 percent has nothing to do only with the fact that it rained well this year. The record harvest is the result of a conversion work that the coffee farm pushed through together with the global environmental organization Rainforest Alliance.
To make the coffee berries more resistant to climate change, their coffee farm has invested in regenerative agriculture that improves the health of the soil and increases production.
- We are better prepared for the future, says Mariana Jordão, 26, and jumps into her white jeep and drives out into the coffee fields.
Between the rows of coffee bushes, she has planted grass that covers the ground and protects the roots of the coffee plants from the elevated temperatures. When she cuts down the coffee bushes, she leaves the branches and leaves to add organic matter.
- We build up the earth's microlife without using artificial fertilizers, she says.
Mariana and her father have also built a huge water basin that catches the rainwater. It is currently filled with 80 million liters of water, which if there is a drought, covers the needs of the crops for two months.
- Rain at the right time is crucial for the flowering to be successful, she says, with something worried in her eyes.
Next year, the weather phenomenon El Niño is expected to affect the harvest. In some places, the effects have already begun to be felt. Less rainfall has meant that water reserves, which are used to fill the locks of the Panama Canal, are already so low that the canal has been forced to reduce the number of ships allowed to pass each day. For the next coffee harvest, the weather phenomenon may mean higher heat and less rain.
- Drought is the absolute worst thing for production. If we suffer from it, next year's harvest can be significantly smaller. Then the coffee becomes more expensive, says Mariana Jordão.
A few miles from her coffee farm is another coffee farm that has also adapted to climate change. Juliana Rezende pulls on a pair of light brown leather boots and slips on a shin guard to protect against possible snakebites. As the leaves fall between the rows of coffee bushes, snakes can gather underneath. She still managed. Although several times she has seen snakes coiling up the coffee bushes to bask in the sun.
- You have to be careful, she says and drives down into a depression in a nature reserve that she created to attract the natural wildlife.
Just like Mariana Jordão, she has converted her coffee cultivation to regenerative agriculture – the hope for the future of Brazilian coffee production. Juliana Rezende was formerly a pharmacist - now she runs Fazenda Santa Bárbara in Cerrado Mineiro. Here, the wild nature is reminded. She has installed motion cameras which, among other things, recorded jaguars moving on their land at night.
Juliana Rezende has gone one step further when it comes to rearranging coffee farming. Without using artificial fertilizers or pesticides, she has managed to increase the productivity of each plant. The secret is about twenty beehives that she placed on the edge of the reserve. By increasing the number of bees in the field, she increases the fertilization of the coffee bushes.
- Pollination is the most important part of coffee production. If the bees don't transfer pollen, there won't be any berries, she says, making sure the car windows are rolled up when we drive past the beehives.
Tens of thousands of bees buzz in the air.
Between the rows of coffee bushes, she has chosen to plant plants that not only keep the temperature down for the roots of the coffee trees, but she has also chosen plants that bees are happy with. The bees are attracted to the coffee fields.
- As long as we are in harmony with nature, it gives back, says Juliana Rezende, 48.
Since she put the hives on display, production has increased by a fifth.
The latest venture she introduced is a Brazilian, patented invention called microgeo. It works as a biological composting station, returning microorganisms to the soil by using cow manure and rumen contents (decomposed grass in the rumen, the first and largest of the cow's four stomachs). The substance does not smell good, but it improves the microbiological diversity of the soil.
- If we are to manage to keep production up, we need to be inventive, says Juliana Rezende.
The coffee in the mug in front of us on the kitchen table if the mornings have traveled far. Maybe Mariana Jordão or Julia Rezende cleaned the dark, damaged beans from our particular cup. How the coffee of the future will taste is uncertain.
On the outskirts of the town of Monte Carmelo, which forms the heart of the Cerrado Mineiro, coffee expert Marcos Ribiero sips coffee from a spoon to feel the taste at the back of his mouth. He works in the lab at the coffee grower cooperative Monteccer's warehouse, where 250 growers' coffee is tested.
- The harvest was big this year, but I think the quality has deteriorated somewhat. Some of the beans got wet from the rain during the harvest and did not get the characteristic flavor that they would have had if they had been sun-dried in the heat, says Marcos Ribiero.
The fact that it has become increasingly difficult to grow coffee has meant that in seven years the world market price for coffee has tripled. Due to the record Brazilian harvest, the price will be slightly reduced this year, but if El Niño creates a longer drought next year, the price will increase again.
- Good coffee will only become more and more expensive, says Marcos Ribeiro.
The Swedish coffee expert Filip Åkerblom remembers how a few years ago he was invited by a large, well-known roastery in Sweden to taste a new blend. He thought the blend would be 90 percent arabica and 10 percent of the lower quality robusta beans.
- I spat it out and looked questioningly at the producer.
It was the opposite – only 10 percent arabica.
- I think we will have a coffee gap in society. Good coffee risks becoming a luxury item, while everyday coffee will taste worse, says Filip Åkerblom.
