When coffee plant cells grown in a bioreactor (top left) are roasted (top right and bottom powders), they develop colors similar to conventional light or dark roast coffee. Credit: Adapted from the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, 2023, DOI: 10.1021/acs.jafc.3c04503
Key points:
- Coffee cultivation is being increasingly threatened by a warming climate—bad news for one of the world’s most popular beverages.
- Looking for alternatives, researchers tested how roasting coffee plant cells impacts the final beverage.
- Overall, while some tastes and smells of traditional coffee could be produced by the cells, more work is needed.
Coffee is one of the most popular beverages worldwide, with 23 billion pounds of beans expected to be produced during the 20232024 growing season. However, coffee cultivation is increasingly threatened by a warming climate since the plants only grow at specific temperatures and altitudes.
Researchers have been investigating lab-grown coffee plant cells since the 1970s as an alternative to farmed beans, but little research has evaluated how laboratory products taste and smell compared with traditional beans.
Recently, in a study published in ACS’ Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, researchers in Finland did just that. The team first cultured cells from chopped Coffea arabica leaves in a bioreactor. Then, the cells were freeze-dried, ground into a fine powder and roasted under three different conditions. Longer roasting times produced colors similar to dark roast coffee beans. Additionally, the current lab-grown powders contained twice as much caffeine as previous bioreactor coffee products, although the current powders’ levels were much lower than those in farmed beans. The team brewed beverages with the roasted cell cultures or dark roast C. arabica beans and served them to trained taste-testers.
The experts identified similar levels of bitterness and sourness in lab-grown and conventional drinks—they said the brews had more roasted, burned sugar, and smokey smells. Additionally, according to the study results, some Maillard reaction products that give coffee its distinct flavor, such as guaiacol and several pyrazines, weren’t found in the cell-based drinks, though other Maillard reaction products were present.
Overall, while some tastes and smells of a typical bean-based coffee could be produced by roasting cultured cells, the researchers say future work is needed to explore processing techniques to further boost flavor for this alternative to conventionally grown coffee.