About this Research Topic

Background

The high demand for coffee grains and leaves continue to surge, fueling a global industry. Generally, coffee beans are processed and brewed to make coffee that is palatable for human consumption and can now be consumed in many ways. Coffee cultivation, production, industrial processing, and preparation contributes to economic development all over the world, not only in the coffee producing countries. The process has a vast value chain with a variety of profitable actions, from growing and processing, through to when it reaches the cup of the final consumer. Currently, there is a wealth of literature that is supporting the shift towards sustainable cultivation, post-harvest processes, fermentation processing, grain preparation/storage and final beverage consumption. The movement towards sustainable practices depends on the support of technical knowledge during the initial planting stages to post-harvest procedures, including grain storage, industrial processing, and the recycling of all collateral waste production.

Climate change events such as frequent drought periods, flooding and rapid fluctuations in temperatures create issues in production and threaten sustainability. These new scenarios call for additional investigation on adaptation and acclimation of coffee plants to these extreme conditions, resilient cultivation systems, directions of plant breeding, and sustainability of the whole coffee production chain in the scope of changing climate all around the globe. Among Arabica and Canephora, the two coffee species that are the most grown, the cultivars of Arabica coffee have a very narrow genetic basis and genetic improvement. Therefore, the use of wild accessions could be a major direction to reach breakthroughs in high adaptability to new scenarios. Sustainability is concerned with the well-being of future generations, particularly with managing irreplaceable natural resources. Coffee cultivation is rarely sustainable today, and even the steps up to final cup consumption lack sustainable vision and actions. In this context, the Research Topic entitled “Sustainable Coffee Production” aims to fill these gaps and provide this crucial knowledge.

Papers discussing the coffee production chain, from coffee cultivation and breeding, up to beverage production, and sensory analyses will be considered. We welcome original research and review articles including, but not limited to the following themes:
• The actions and processes contributing toward the resilience and sustainability of the coffee chain
• Sustainable cultivation of coffee plants (cropping systems, crop management, ecophysiology in changing climate conditions, biochemistry, chemical changes of fruit and grains)
• Coffee plant breeding toward disease and pest tolerance, drought, flooding, elevated and low temperature tolerance; post-harvest and fermentation and roasting processes with low energy consumption and minimum pollution
• Sustainable beverage production
• Overall recycling actions and processes in the coffee production chain, from the field to the final cup

Keywords: COFFEE, Coffea sp, cropping systems, ecophysiology, plant breeding, beverage production, sustainable coffee production

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.

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