The climate crisis will jeopardise coffee. A rescue plan is brewing in Vietnam

Researchers are trying to produce a ‘super coffee’ that withstands climate threats, write Rebecca Tan and Nhung Nguyen

Thuan Sarzynski shows off a robusta coffee plant in Lam Dong province (Thanh Hue/The Washington Post)

For decades, the world of coffee has had one star: the arabica bean. It is “complex” and “deliciously refined”, according to companies such as Starbucks that have refused to use any other bean. It has engendered obsession among Java aficionados.

But the climate crisis, as it tends to do, is shifting fortunes. The sophisticated arabica is hypersensitive to fluctuations in temperatures and faces dim prospects in a warming world. Once spurned as its “ugly stepsister,” the bulkier robusta plant – so named because it grows robustly in tough conditions – is mounting its revenge.

Vietnam is responsible for more than half of the global robusta supply, government data shows, and it plays an increasingly vital role in efforts to rescue coffee from the effects of the climate crisis. The robusta farmed here, on the rolling hills of Vietnam’s central highlands, is more resilient and has higher yields than virtually anywhere else, scientists say, with some varieties producing two or three times more beans of varieties in other parts of the world.