Billions of people consume coffee every day. It doesn’t matter if it is made for its characteristics, because it is a social drink in cafes or the epicenter of a personal daily routine, the five minutes we spend just to prepare the drink we love without thinking about anything else. . Now, despite its popularity, coffee cannot be found everywhere.

Coffee fields require very specific humidity, temperature and altitude characteristics, and this is true for both the most commercial coffee and exotic varieties such as Geisha coffee. Speaking of gourmet coffee, we should also mention Canary coffee: Agaete coffee, which is unique in Europe.

Chance?

Similar to the aforementioned Geisha coffee, Agaete coffee was discovered by chance. Or by chance, if you prefer to dress it that way. Agaete A municipality in the north-west of Gran Canaria whose economy was traditionally based on fishing and agriculture for self-consumption (until the advent of tourism and the rise of the tertiary sector).

It is surrounded by mountains and the plantations in the primary sector are subtropical fruit trees such as bananas, orange trees, papayas and mangoes. The soil of volcanic origin was also ideal for these crops but also proved to be ideal for coffee trees.

Coffee seeds did not fly to the island, but were brought from Tenerife in the first half of the 19th century, and farmers did not give them any special treatment: They are grown as another subtropical fruit tree.But something happened: the coffee trees sought the shade of the fruit trees, and the average temperature of 23 degrees during the day, added to the volcanic soil of 17 degrees at night, did not disturb the bushes.

Like many other cafes, it was a highly artisanal process. At harvest time, the fruit was dried on rooftops and peeled by hand before being sold in shops in Agaete. It was rare and overlooked outside the region, but in 2006 the farmers decided that this had to change.

Who knows if it’s because of the owners’ confidence or the benefits of specialty coffee? They fried and packaged 250 gram packages They started marketing it under the brand name ‘Café de Agaete’. Since then, it has become a much-loved coffee with its chocolatey taste, and it’s strange that it has managed to survive to this day.

This is because the whole process is still very manual and tedious, but also because the altitude is no more than 400 meters above sea level, although the rainfall and average temperature are good, while the ideal of these plantations is between 800 meters and 2,100 meters.

If it is already special due to these conditions and traditional production, we should also add this. It is a typical varietyIt is surprising that this coffee has lasted so long, as it is one of the oldest varieties of Arabica coffee and less hardy than Robusta (the variety most similar to Agaete coffee, grown at altitudes between 500 and 1,200 meters). Initially, this coffee variety was not given the necessary care.

In fact, a few years ago, in our article entitled “The miracle of Agaete coffee”, we could see that the yield of the plants was extremely low, producing only 5,000 kilos in the entire valley and under extreme conditions. Gran Canaria is located in the northernmost part of the ‘coffee belt’. That is, the cultivation of this typical Arabica variety should not be viable, but, interestingly, it is.

Global warming, get warm, get outside

Although Agaete coffee is unique, if average temperatures continue to rise, other competitors may soon emerge closer to the European continent. In fact, global warming is making Italian coffee growers, who have been planting coffee for over a century and dreaming of a stable harvest, finally see their fields bear fruit.

It happens especially in Sicily. In 1905 they planted 25 plants and failed: the winter took them away. In 1911 they went back to attack, but frost destroyed the plantation and after waiting a few years they tried again in 1940. Here they managed to ‘catch up’ but the interesting thing is that in 2018 66 plants produced 30 kilos.

This is a ridiculous figure, but it represented a change, and what was more incredible (according to those responsible) was that these plants had grown outside of greenhouses, in the open air and without the use of pesticides. In fact, its managers confirm that “it is clear that the climate emergency and the resulting increase in temperature have played a decisive role in the flowering of plants in Sicily”, and although they do not yet have something like Agaete coffee, they trust in coffee. We could soon be able to create a “0 kilometer cafe”.

And along with Agaete, it’s not the only region that challenges the altitude ‘norms’ for coffee tree cultivation. In Australia, coffee is grown at altitudes between 15 and 900 metres. In California, the same is done at altitudes of 180 metres. Is the ‘coffee belt’ in danger? In production, at least not yet, but give it another 60 years at this rate of temperature rise… and we’ll see what happens.

Pictures | Gran Canaria Tourism, Noyolcont, Canary Islands

In Xataka | In 1850, the French invented the best tool for Spanish coffee growers: a press.