January 18th, 2007

The gene for a perfect bean?

Posted by Alex Payson at 1:18 pm

Leaving all opinions on genetically-modified foods aside, here is the coffee news of the day.
Scientists have located the gene that produces sucrose in coffee beans. Sucrose helps regulate the aroma and flavor of coffee beans as they are roasted, so with a little tweaking, they may be able to make a more flavorful or consistent bean.

Of course that could ultimately lead to a monoculture of coffee being planted, reducing diversity, which would be a bad thing…

But then again we have been genetically modifying foods for ~10,000 years since the very dawn of agriculture, so maybe it is a good change…

Read the article here and let us know what you think!

Posted in General news