British researchers looking for new climate change resistant coffee beans

Scientists at the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew have begun a desperate bid to find a new bean of coffee which can thrive as the climate warms, before the world’s supplies run out.

Currently, just one variety of coffee bean – Coffea arabica – is primarily grown throughout the world by manufacturers. But it cannot survive at high temperatures, and botanists fear that up to 100 per cent of current crops will be lost by 2080 if climate change predictions for global warming hold true.

Now scientists at Kew Gardens in south-west London have begun studying the 124 other species of coffee bean in the hope that not only will they stand up to warmer temperatures, but also taste as good as the arabica variety. (MTI)