Author: Daily Upsider

That morning cup of coffee you had? It’s been around for about 600,000 years. Researchers traced the ancestry of the world’s favorite coffee, Coffea arabica, back to its origins using genetic data from coffee plants worldwide.

Their goal was pragmatic: understanding the plant’s genetic history to bolster its resilience against pests and climate shifts. They discovered that Coffea arabica emerged naturally around 600,000 years ago, the result of crossbreeding between two other coffee species.

Before humans intervened, these wild coffee plants grew in Ethiopia and were first cultivated for brewing in Yemen during the 1400s. Legend has it that in the 1600s, an Indian monk named Baba Budan smuggled seven coffee beans from Yemen, kickstarting coffee’s global journey.
Arabica coffee, known for its smooth taste, dominates the global market, accounting for 60% – 70% of coffee consumed worldwide. The remaining portion is robusta, a more bitter coffee derived from one of arabica’s parent species.

To uncover arabica’s genetic past, researchers analyzed the genomes of its parent species, Coffea canephora and Coffea eugenioides, along with over 30 arabica plants, including a sample from the 1700s provided by the Natural History Museum in London.

Their findings, published in Nature Genetics, shed light on arabica’s evolutionary journey. They discovered that the plant’s population fluctuated over millennia, adapting to environmental changes. However, these fluctuations left arabica vulnerable to diseases like coffee leaf rust.

By identifying genetic markers associated with resistance to coffee leaf rust, researchers hope to develop strategies to protect arabica coffee from future threats. Fabian Echeverria, an adviser for the Center for Coffee Research and Education at Texas A&M University, highlights the study’s importance in safeguarding the future of coffee production.

An ancient Greek dialect spoken by a dwindling population in remote Turkish mountain villages serves as a unique link to the past, according to researchers. This dialect, known as Romeyka, has characteristics more akin to the language of Homer than to modern Greek. However, with its speakers aging and no written form to preserve it, Romeyka faces the looming threat of extinction.

Quantifying the exact number of Romeyka speakers proves challenging due to its oral nature and the scattered communities around Trabzon. Recognizing the urgency, a University of Cambridge professor initiated the “Crowdsourcing Romeyka” project to document the language’s distinct linguistic traits before it disappears forever.

The project encourages native speakers worldwide to contribute recordings of themselves speaking Romeyka, with many anticipated contributors residing in the United States, Australia, and across Europe, forming a dispersed diaspora that still retains connections to their linguistic roots.

Research reveals that Romeyka traces its lineage not from modern Greek but from the Hellenistic form of Greek spoken centuries ago, sharing similarities with ancient Greek that have since vanished in other Greek varieties. This linguistic connection challenges the notion of modern Greek as an “isolate” language, suggesting a more complex linguistic evolution.

The online initiative aims to harness the power of technology to preserve Romeyka as a living language. Yet, the ultimate fate of Romeyka rests with its speakers, who must decide whether to pass it on to future generations.