“Compared to regular coffee, cellular coffee is less bitter,” said Hickey Aisala.
Finland:
Latte drinkers may in the future sip java sourced from petri dishes instead of plantations, scientists say behind a new technology that hopes to lead to sustainable coffee in a lab.
“It’s actually coffee, because the product contains nothing but coffee ingredients,” Heiko Risher tells AFP, pointing to a dish of the light brown powder.
His team of researchers from the Finnish technical research institute VTT believes that their coffee will avoid many of the environmental harms associated with the mass production of one of the world’s favorite beverages.
Coffee is not ground from beans, but is grown from a group of coffee plant cells in a bioreactor under closely controlled temperature, light and oxygen conditions.
Once roasted, the powder can be brewed just like traditional coffee.
Risher’s team used the same principles of cellular agriculture as those used to produce lab-grown meat, which does not involve the slaughter of livestock, and was approved for sale for the first time by Singapore authorities last year. was given.
“Coffee is certainly a problematic product,” Rischer said, as rising global temperatures are making existing plantations less productive, prompting farmers to clear large areas of rainforest for new crops.
“Transportation is the issue, fossil fuel use … so it’s totally understandable to look for alternatives,” Rischer said.
The team is conducting a thorough analysis of how sustainable their product will be when manufactured on a large scale, but believe it will use less labor and fewer resources than conventional coffee.
“We already know that our water footprint, for example, is much lower than what is needed for the development of the region,” Risher said.
taste test
For coffee lovers, the key to the success of the lab-grown variety will lie in its taste – but so far only a specially trained panel of sensory analysts have been authorized to try the new brew because of its status as a “novel food.” is in. .
For the time being, they are only allowed to “taste and spit, but not swallow it,” said research scientist Hickey Aisala, an expert in sensory perception who led the testers on the project.
“Compared to regular coffee, cellular coffee is less bitter,” which may be due to the slightly lower caffeine content, Aisala told AFP, adding that the fruit is also less prominent in the lab-produced powder.
“But that being said, we really have to admit that we are not professional coffee roasters and a lot of the flavor generation actually happens in the roasting process,” Rischer said.
There are other initiatives in the hunt for more sustainable alternatives to coffee.
Seattle startup Atomo announced in September that it had raised $11.5 million for its “molecular coffee,” which has a flavor makeup similar to the beverage, but is produced from other organic materials than the coffee plant.
But surveys in the US and Canada have suggested widespread public vigilance towards laboratory-grown food substitutes, although this is less so among younger consumers.
Despite the environmental benefits, some food policy experts have warned that coffee growers’ livelihoods could suffer if widespread moves toward lab-grown products are made.
In Helsinki, Risher estimates that it will take at least four years for the team’s lab-grown coffee to gain regulatory approval and commercial support to be able to sit alongside its more traditional cousins on shelves.
The project is of particular importance in Finland, which according to analyst group Statista ranks among the world’s top consumers of coffee on average 10 kg (22 lb) per capita each year.
“There’s definitely a lot of enthusiasm for it,” Aisala said.
(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
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