How can you make better coffee at home? Well, an easy way is to buy higher quality beans.

But, I’m concerned this is going to get harder and harder for you in the future.

Climate change is making coffee taste worse while also pushing farmers into financial hardship.

In this episode we explore how genetic development can produce a coffee tree that might save the day. Is there a wild coffee tree happily growing in the forests somewhere that could be our silver bullet? What about if we mix existing documented species together?

But, the big problem is that genetic research is slow, and farmers can’t wait around. So, in the second half, we learn how coffee farmers in Kenya are trying to fix the problem right now.

And I’m actually tentatively hopeful the beans you brew in the morning are not going to get worse. But, it all depends on you, me and the coffee industry making a couple of changes right now.

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Learn more about how Trabocca, this episode’s sponsor, works with coffee farmers

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Find some of Alvans Mutero’s and Thiriku’s coffee to taste for yourself

Learn more about cloning coffee plants on my other podcast, Adventures in Coffee

Want to listen to more documentary podcasts about coffee? Check out Filter Stories

Sarada Krishnan - LinkedIn and Research Gate

Aaron Davis - Kew Gardens

Hanna Neuschwander - LinkedIn

Bernard Gichimu - LinkedIn

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Live in Berlin? Join me for a free decaf cupping at Communal Coffee on the 12th December 2025. Reserve your ticket here: https://bit.ly/4nZXyrf.