[HN Gopher] Sustainable coffee grown in Finland with cellular ag...
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Sustainable coffee grown in Finland with cellular agriculture
Author : mjul
Score : 146 points
Date : 2021-09-26 09:47 UTC (13 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.vttresearch.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.vttresearch.com)
| hahamrfunnyguy wrote:
| I've recently started making dandelion coffee, which is prepared
| by chopping up the roots and roasting them. It tastes similar to
| coffee. It has nutty, roasty and flowery flavors. I'd say it's
| less complex than a quality roasted coffee, but it has a nice
| flavor. It doesn't have any unpleasant flavor like really cheap
| coffees (Maxwell House, Chase and Sanborn, Folgers, etc). I think
| if you gave most people this and told them it was coffee, they
| wouldn't argue with you.
| rapsey wrote:
| Funny it is Finland to come up with this. Since they are known
| for having god-awful coffee:
| https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/9bqiil/macrons_reac...
| Tuna-Fish wrote:
| That's clearly part of our competitive advantage here.
|
| Because initial bioreactor coffee is probably worse than
| naturally grown varieties, you need a market that will accept
| that before you can get the kind of scale that will drive
| future improvement.
|
| Or something.
| darthrupert wrote:
| You would think that, but the problem is that Finns like
| their coffee the way it is.
| thatcat wrote:
| The paper referenced was written in 1974 and concludes with "The
| typical aromatic characteristics of roasted coffee can be
| obtained from roasted coffee cells which have been derived from
| cultures maintained in active culture at least one year. Cell
| populations eventually appear to lose their ability to produce
| coffee precursors. The reason for this coffee culture roasting
| aroma instability is unknown although one obvious explanation
| could be cell selection from an initial possible heterogeneous
| cell population..."
|
| I wonder what changes have been made in this iteration of
| research or if there has even been any improvement.
| eurasiantiger wrote:
| This is not that surprising. Most of the psychoactive Harmala
| alkaloids in coffee are formed during roasting; typically by
| pyrolytic breakdown and cyclization of tryptophan. So, naturally,
| if the psychoactive effects are the same, the taste will be
| perceived as the same.
| 0_____0 wrote:
| Sorry, this is fascinating but I'm not finding the info I want
| to via search. What alkaloids do you mean? I'm guessing not
| just caffeine?
| eurasiantiger wrote:
| Harmala alkaloids, most abundantly harman and norharman.
| hutzlibu wrote:
| "So, naturally, if the psychoactive effects are the same, the
| taste will be perceived as the same."
|
| I have no idea about the rest of your statement, but of all the
| substances I know, taste and psychoactive effect are not at all
| the same. They maybe influence each other, yes, but the
| sensoric taste is a different input than the internal effects
| of the stimulant.
| eurasiantiger wrote:
| IIRC it has been shown that all taste preferences are
| acquired based on individual neurophysiological responses to
| taste stimuli; in other words, internal effects dictate
| external preferences.
| andi999 wrote:
| So that is the thing called 'acquired taste'?
| hutzlibu wrote:
| Where was this shown?
|
| No doubt there is influence, but on the first time use,
| flavor comes before the effect.
| eurasiantiger wrote:
| It was a study in a respectable journal, but
| unfortunately I cannot recall more.
|
| Obviously one cannot have a preference for something they
| haven't had.
| hutzlibu wrote:
| But isn't then the "aquired taste" linked to that
| specific sensory input? So even though your brain likes
| substance x in the new coffee - it cannot connect it when
| drinking something that tastes different on first try,
| even though might have the same effect.
| eurasiantiger wrote:
| That's the thing--taste is intimately linked with effect.
| Every coffee drinker will notice if someone switches
| brands on them.
|
| That's also why people with certain CYP3A4 variants
| dislike the taste of CYP3A4-inhibiting foods such as
| grapefruit, and people with certain variants absolutely
| love them.
|
| CYP3A4 is a _liver enzyme_ responsible for metabolising
| human sex hormones, as well as most pharmaceutical and
| recreational drugs, including caffeine.
| eurasiantiger wrote:
| Here's a source clearly demonstrating that taste has not
| been selected for in our evolution, but effect on CYP3A4
| has: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s12862-019
| -1366-7
| 0_____0 wrote:
| Big if true. Coffee is one of the world's most traded commodities
| by value, and the sourcing ethics are often pretty shaky.
|
| I think it's sort of funny that they called out the flavor as
| tasting like "ordinary coffee," since people in my experience are
| extremely fussy about their brew.
|
| By using bioreactor output, they're starting with something like
| a powder of plant cells, and finding a way to roast it -- this
| seems like it would create quite a different result to whole-bean
| roasting, I am very curious what kind of parameters they will
| have to adjust with the coffee cells (genetic modification to
| increase certain alkaloids, oils, etc?) and roasting process.
|
| edit: I think it's extremely funny that my comment about people
| being fussy about coffee has inspired a whole series of replies
| with opinions about coffee, as well as opinions of other people's
| opinions
| [deleted]
| rebuilder wrote:
| I mean, they said it "bears a similarity to ordinary coffee",
| which is pretty broad language, if you ask me.
| [deleted]
| smoe wrote:
| Are people that fuzzy? Of course I know my share of people that
| really obsess over it, own all the gear and everything in the
| process is strictly weighted, timed and temperature controlled.
|
| But most people seem to primarily care about it tasting as they
| are used to whatever level of quality that might be. So making
| a coffee that tastes "ordinary" seems a sensible target.
| paavohtl wrote:
| > since people in my experience are extremely fussy about their
| brew
|
| Finns drink the most coffee per capita in the world [1] but
| that coffee tends to be of a pretty low quality. For some
| people "good coffee" means it has been roasted so dark that it
| mostly tastes bitter and burnt. Other people don't really care
| what the coffee tastes like, as long as it's black (and they
| put so much milk in it that it mostly tastes of milk) and warm-
| ish. So it is entirely possible the scientists conducting this
| experiments aren't the best at judging the actual quality of
| the coffee.
|
| [1] https://www.universitymagazine.ca/countries-that-consume-
| the...
| timonoko wrote:
| I started drinking coffee only in Mexico. It tasted less
| bitter than Finnish coffee and did not cause stomach
| problems. I do not remember the brand, but "ESTO SUAVE" was
| the blurb.
| Nokinside wrote:
| Traditionally Finns love coffee that is extremely lightly
| roasted, and is the finest quality (and highest caffeine
| content). You don't find the preference for so light roasts
| anywhere else.
|
| The bulk blend that Finns consume in large quantities "Paulig
| Juhla Mokka" is made from high quality beans.
|
| Young people have started drinking more dark roasted blends,
| similar to coffees in Sweden and rest of the Europe. Swedish
| coffee taste is completely different. Dark roast all over.
| anonuser123456 wrote:
| >and is the finest quality (and highest caffeine content).
|
| Robusta has the highest caffeine content but is generally
| inferior to arabica.
| quijoteuniv wrote:
| " and is the finest quality (and highest caffeine
| content)." If is of the finest quality, means is arabica or
| other sort, which do not have the highest caffeine. Robusta
| type, which is cheaper to produce, has double the caffeine,
| (one of the reasons resist bugs) . Robusta has typically
| all the unwanted flavours of coffee, earthy & rubberish.
| Italians have traditionally added robusta to their blend
| for expresso shots because of the extra smack they get from
| the added caffeine (and probably to save money/make more
| money, this is my opinion)
| abakker wrote:
| Robusta will produce a nicer crema on espresso, too.
| eurasiantiger wrote:
| It's not just the caffeine; Robusta and Arabica have
| different amounts of other psychoactives.
|
| "Norharman and harman are formed during coffee roasting,
| and Robusta coffee has higher amounts than Arabica."
|
| https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B978012
| 409...
| paavohtl wrote:
| > Traditionally Finns love coffee that is extremely lightly
| roasted
|
| No, not really. It's called light roast here, but my
| understanding is that compared to actual light roasts (e.g
| speciality coffees from smaller roasters) most coffees tend
| be actually closer to medium or even dark roasts. Good
| quality light roasts taste of their origin characteristics
| (coffee from different places tends to taste different, who
| would've guessed) and they are closer to acidic than
| bitter.
| Nokinside wrote:
| Heh. I think you go little carried out with you coffee
| enthusiasm.
|
| It's called light roast here and everywhere. I challenge
| you to find any place on earth where normal people (not
| coffee connoisseurs) drink lighter roast.
| paavohtl wrote:
| I'm not claiming that people of any nation in particular
| drink lighter roasted coffee, or even that Finland is
| exceptional in this regard. It's not a competition. I'm
| arguing that on the whole spectrum of coffee roasting,
| even Finnish supposedly light roasted coffee is not very
| light at all.
| darthrupert wrote:
| Juhla Mokka is mediocre quality, cheap coffee.
| yason wrote:
| Finns "love" light roasts because they're accustomed to it
| (except many of younger generations) and why they're
| accustomed is supposedly because a long time ago coffee was
| expensive and if you roasted it only a little you would
| obtain more coffee when measured in plain volume--with no
| regard to the actual taste.
|
| I don't know how much of that is true but most typical
| Finnish blends are light, bland, and bitter (eventhough
| they're marketed as smooth...) but also cheap. The labels
| calling brands "finest quality" in Finland is a very
| relative matter: for decades the "finest" was probably
| something that any country with a hint of a coffee culture
| would've called crap.
|
| I also don't know if I'm young enough but I've always like
| dark roasts so the general kind doesn't even taste like
| coffee in my mouth. Even as recently as maybe 20 years ago
| there were only one or two semi-dark roasts on the market:
| the situation has improved remarkably, however.
| 2muchcoffeeman wrote:
| _The bulk blend that Finns consume in large quantities
| "Paulig Juhla Mokka" is made from high quality beans._
|
| I looked it up. Looks like typical super market coffee to
| me. Some of the big roasters produce a fairly decent blend.
| They use good quality arabica. These guys are probably no
| exception.
|
| I've had the opportunity to get bags of coffee of a couple
| of brands with a recent roast date. Within a one to two
| weeks. Perfectly good. But get those beans through normal
| supermarket supply chains and it doesn't matter how good
| the coffee was, it'll be stale and taste bad by the time
| you brew it. Even worse if the beans are pre-ground and
| vacuum packed into bricks. I'd rather drink instant.
| Nokinside wrote:
| Yes. It's bulk coffee and cheap, not even close to best
| coffees you can get vacuum packed.
|
| It's still better than most bulk coffee you get from most
| other super markets from the rest of the world.
| paavohtl wrote:
| The roast date is the important differentiator. Coffee
| from major brands (such as the aforementioned Paulig) do
| not include it. Rather, they have a best before date,
| which can be literally years after the roasting. But I
| guess the coffee can't get much worse after, as you said,
| being pre-ground and vacuum packed into a brick.
| darthrupert wrote:
| Yep. It's just feeding the addiction. We're a nation of drug
| addicts.
|
| Funnily enough, mention the prospect of legal cannabis and
| everybody goes berserk.
| wrycoder wrote:
| Coffee won't give you lung cancer.
| chownie wrote:
| Neither will cannabis. The consumption method is fully up
| to user choice and in areas where it's legalized edibles
| are commonplace.
| wrycoder wrote:
| What percentage of cannabis users do you estimate are
| smokers? I'd guess 70%, but I'm not a user.
| azinman2 wrote:
| The trend is deeply the opposite. Most young people don't
| smoke or use tobacco but increasingly do marijuana in one
| form or the other.
| snemvalts wrote:
| I've started to move from pre-ground Paulig (finnish brand)
| to grinding my own beans. Just while reading this post,
| drinking the left-over Paulig made me wonder if I have COVID.
| Very little smell and taste compared to freshly ground
| Italian beans, made even worse by the oxidation.
| aaron_m04 wrote:
| I'm not sure if you were serious, but losing your sense of
| smell due to COVID-19 is like turning off a light with a
| light switch -- it was everything, all at once, at least
| for me.
| mkr-hn wrote:
| I think it's because coffee is counterintuitive. People
| assume a darker roast means stronger coffee (caffeine-wise)
| when it's the opposite.
| eurasiantiger wrote:
| But it might actually be stronger coffee MAOI-wise.
| eurasiantiger wrote:
| Since coffee contains a large amount of MAOA inhibitors, the
| difference in taste preference can be explained by different
| MAOA variable number tandem repeat genotypes in the
| population. From these, MAOA-LPR is the most widely studied,
| and has been shown to be connected to criminality and violent
| behavior--especially if paired with childhood maltreatment,
| which tends to change the activity of MAOA by methylation,
| which is a type of heritable epigenetic modification.
| dunefox wrote:
| What exactly does that mean?
| eurasiantiger wrote:
| Which part? It's very difficult to be both exact and
| explain neurotransmitter systems in layman's terms.
|
| You can take any of the terms used above, even whole
| sentences, and enter them into Google to find further
| information around the subject.
| theshrike79 wrote:
| So basically what you're saying that people's preference
| for different types of coffee depend on their genes?
| eurasiantiger wrote:
| Yes.
| wrycoder wrote:
| The last part of your comment stated that coffee drinking
| can reduce criminality in certain genotypes? If not,
| could you rephrase it?
| karaterobot wrote:
| What they said was that people who exhibit criminal
| behavior (especially those who were maltreated as
| children) have a different experience tasting coffee. I
| don't see any claim that drinking coffee reduces
| criminality.
| wrycoder wrote:
| @eurasiantiger stated that studies show that MAOA-LPR has
| been shown to be connected [positively?] to criminality
| and violent behavior. I would expect that when
| @eurasiantiger specifically links that to MAOA inhibitors
| found in coffee, that means there is a linkage between
| coffee inhibiting MAOA and criminality in certain
| genotypes.
| eurasiantiger wrote:
| It was simply an expansion of that particular gene
| variant, but yes, I would assume there _is_ a correlation
| between coffee intake and impulsive crime in some
| genetically predisposed subpopulations, but I cannot say
| whether it is linear, nonlinear or perhaps inverse.
|
| What I can definitely tell you is that there is a
| positive correlation between heavy coffee intake (>= 8
| cups per day) and suicidality. I assume that is the
| result of the anxiogenic and impulsivity-increasing
| actions of particular Harmala alkaloids, namely harman
| and norharman.
|
| https://link.springer.com/article/10.1023/A:1007614714579
| scns wrote:
| Coffee consumption can increase can increase ADD
| symptoms, no idea why though. L-Theanin from green tea
| can work in the opposite direction.
| eurasiantiger wrote:
| Yes, but the effect on coffee drinking preferences is not
| limited to those engaging in crime: plenty of "normal"
| people have these gene variants, and it's likely the
| criminal outcomes don't manifest at all without childhood
| abuse, or they manifest in non-violent ways, e.g. white-
| collar crime or substance abuse.
| dwighttk wrote:
| "Similar to ordinary coffee"
| 0_____0 wrote:
| "He had found a Nutri-Matic machine which had provided him
| with a plastic cup filled with a liquid that was almost, but
| not quite, entirely unlike [coffee]."
| foxfluff wrote:
| > I think it's sort of funny that they called out the flavor as
| tasting like "ordinary coffee," since people in my experience
| are extremely fussy about their brew.
|
| The average coffee drinker in Finland isn't really a coffee
| snob. Mostly everyone just drinks the same handful of brands of
| pre-ground coffee, drip brewed through a paper filter. You go
| to a restaurant or a little bakery-cafe, you get the same
| stuff. Not labeled, no choices to make, but everyone knows what
| it is. It's just ordinary coffee.
| temp00345 wrote:
| I'm curious about several things:
|
| - does this process require expensive equipment ?
|
| - I assume you can apply this process to other cells/substances -
| cocoa ? coca ? tobacco ? oranges ? potatoes ?
|
| - if equipment became cheaper, could we envision people having a
| device for cellular agriculture at home?
| vletal wrote:
| I would guess that it depends on the final product. This works
| for coffee because it gets grinded to a fine powder. Cocoa
| might work as well, tobacco for e-smokig, etc.
| hybrid_cluster wrote:
| - Yes, doing this at a meaningful scale will require large
| bioreactors with a price tag of tens to hundreds of millions of
| dollars. You will need LOTS of those reactors to get production
| beyond 1% of the world's current coffee consumption.
|
| - With all of these, one has to ask what the point is if the
| bioreactor inputs are sugar (from plants) and other nutrients.
| If you want sustainability benefits for X where X = plant-based
| product, you're probably better off improving the current
| agricultural practices of growing X rather than growing X in a
| bioreactor.
|
| - That's one of the loftier visions in biotech: decentralized
| manufacturing of basically anything. Anything along the lines
| of a convenient personal bioreactor currently seems like it
| might as well be a century away or more, but I'd certainly be
| an early adopter:)
| arthur_sav wrote:
| > Sustainable coffee
|
| Is this code word for "it's gonna be trash"?
| darthrupert wrote:
| Not necessarily, rather it means at least double the price.
| Obviously, since veing sustainable and fair is always more
| expensive.
| tomtimtall wrote:
| Honestly curious, where in the world do you live? Equating
| sustainable with lower quality is really odd to me and I don't
| think anywhere at least in Northern Europe.
|
| If companies are producing just to get the lowest cost, it ends
| up being trash. Whenever anyone aims for sustainable products
| it's obvious it will come at a higher price and quality becomes
| essential. That's at least wha we see in all the sustainable
| products here
| arthur_sav wrote:
| Sweden. We have replaced all our produce with lab grown GMOs
| with no taste what so ever.
| corroclaro wrote:
| Ridiculous. The aspect of being genetically modified or not
| has by itself no influence on parameters of taste. At the
| local supermarket, you will be hard pressed to find "lab
| grown GMOs" in any produce section - most of it is grown in
| southern Sweden using traditional high yield crops (that
| may taste like nothing for reasons of production).
|
| The Swedish Food Agency[1] states that there are very few
| genetically modified products on the market at all.
|
| 1. https://www.livsmedelsverket.se/livsmedel-och-
| innehall/genmo...
| arthur_sav wrote:
| It must be my imagination then.
|
| Most of the produce in Sweden is imported. I do love my
| seasonal berries though, they taste great. Everything
| else, from tomatoes to letuce/cucumbers and other daily
| produce taste like nothing.
|
| You can try to refute that but it's a fact. I've lived in
| the Mediterranean so i have something to compare against.
|
| It's not normal to leave an apple on the counter and look
| the same after a month.
| Protostome wrote:
| I don't think that growing coffee from cells will be scalable. It
| suffers the same problems that the cultured meat industry
| suffers.
|
| Ultimately, the most cost-effective (energy and scalability-wise)
| production method is synthesizing the aromatic molecules directly
| without going through cell cultures.
| patall wrote:
| There a very different techniques of cell culture. For cultured
| meat for example, the texture is very important which makes it
| expensive as you have to grow large groups of cells. If that is
| not necessary here, it will be much cheaper.
|
| An example: Quorn, grown in bioreactors since 1985.
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quorn
| Jensson wrote:
| Animal cells are very hard to keep alive since they are used to
| having blood and oxygen constantly pumping, that makes them
| expensive to farm. Plant cells on the other hand are very
| robust and survives harsh conditions, they are way cheaper to
| cultivate.
|
| So if anything is worth artificial cultivation like this, it is
| plants like Coffee where the part we eat is a very small part
| of the whole plant. Then we can skip the rest of the coffee
| plant and just grow the beans.
| jjmellon wrote:
| You have to laugh at the obligatory time-to-market estimates in
| these lab-grown food articles: "I estimate we are only four years
| away from ramping up production and having regulatory approval in
| place."
|
| It would be interesting to see what estimate was provided in the
| 1974 article referenced in the piece.
| intricatedetail wrote:
| Not only the science may be the barrier, but also lobbyists -
| if coffee plantations start paying for spreading ill rumours
| aka you'll grow 3rd leg from lab coffee etc.
| hybrid_cluster wrote:
| > this project has been part of our overall endeavor to develop
| the biotechnological production of daily and familiar commodities
| that are conventionally produced by agriculture.
|
| I'm afraid I have to call BS. The nutrient medium used to feed
| the cell cultures will contain glucose or sucrose most likely
| from industrially-grown corn or sugarcane as a carbon source and
| other nutrients.
|
| I.e. in this case biotech isn't getting rid of an agricultural
| production process and magically replacing it with something
| sustainable - it's simply shifting the agricultural supply chain
| more upstream and out of view.
|
| Could it still be more sustainable compared to traditional coffee
| growing? I doubt it very much given all the input required to run
| commercial-scale bioreactors. Those things are energy intensive,
| produce waste water, and require complex nutrient broths and
| sterility. If you're claiming sustainability benefits in such a
| fuzzy situation, at least have an LCA to back up the claims.
|
| What about commercial feasibility? Extremely unlikely. Most if
| not all of the dealbreakers recently outlined in the context of
| commercial-scale lab-grown meat will apply here too [0].
|
| But perhaps they can bioengineer some novel coffee
| characteristics unobtainable otherwise and sell it for $500 a
| cup.
|
| [0] https://thecounter.org/lab-grown-cultivated-meat-cost-at-
| sca...
| aaron695 wrote:
| > The nutrient medium used to feed the cell cultures will
| contain glucose or sucrose most likely from industrially-grown
| corn or sugarcane as a carbon source and god knows what else.
|
| Where exactly do you think people here think it comes from?
|
| Sewerage, mining waste, asteroids?
|
| Sure, in the dystopian future people will be drinking coffee
| from stolen sewerage (it has the nutrients and energy). And in
| a SolarPunk future assuming everyone one's not retarded like
| now, you could mine it (coal and minerals also have the
| nutrients and energy)
|
| But currently we all know it's sugar and by "god knows what
| else" are you referring to plants?
|
| Sugar is 19 cents per lb
|
| Coffee is about $1.93 per lb
|
| In the world of the Environmental Complex controlled sheeple
| that means nothing because it all has to lead to fear, but in
| the napkin maths world of engineers it means coffee is very
| intensive to grow compared to sugar, so there is a lot of
| leeway.
|
| Maybe it's too expense now, but it will mostly be done this way
| within our lifetimes, and I don't see why it won't be sooner
| rather than later.
| hmsshagatsea wrote:
| I know nothing of agriculture but I would think corn is much
| more sustainable than coffee beans. So it's a step in the right
| direction at least, isn't it?
| thatcat wrote:
| The PRL-4 media referenced is mostly the same macro and
| micronutrients that all plants need plus a small amount of
| sucrose (30 g/L) with 10% coconut milk added.
| hybrid_cluster wrote:
| Unfortunately, small amount of sugar = even smaller amount of
| useful product. I.e. for all we know the yields/cell
| densities (not reported) are so low that you need more land
| to grow sugarcane and coconut trees than to grow the amount
| of coffea plants needed for a similar amount coffee.
| wbl wrote:
| European sugar is from sugarbeet.
| MomoXenosaga wrote:
| It would be more sustainable if the poor countries that grow
| coffee would also be the ones that profit from it. As it is the
| big coffee factories are all in the rich West.
| beebeepka wrote:
| Almost as if slavery is still very much a thing.
|
| Said poor countries are exactly where the do called west wants
| them to be. Do the Swiss grow coco? No, they buy it for
| peanuts, add some milk and sugar, then sell the final product
| for at least a modest profit.
|
| I wish it was easy to support the people doing the actual work
| but how? Supporting native brands? Sure but how I know who
| controls the company and if they are any better than the
| exploiter I am trying to avoid?
| wrycoder wrote:
| Look into the Specialty Coffee Association and
| roastmagazine.com/dailycoffeenews/.
|
| Also look at roast.com for an example. (I'm not affiliated.)
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