How is artificial coffee made? Finnish scientists use "agricultural cells" to cultivate the first cup of artificial coffee

Finnish scientists have successfully cultivated the first cup of "artificial coffee" using "cell agriculture" in a laboratory production in Finland, the Finnish National Technical Research Center (Technical research Centre of Finland,VTT) said on September 15.

Heiko Rischer, head of the Finnish Research Institute (Technical research Centre of Finland,VTT), said: because there are more and more challenges in growing coffee in traditional agriculture, we want to use biotechnology to replace traditional agriculture in coffee production.

According to a report released by Statista:

The Coffee market worldwide-statistics & facts report, released in February 2021, shows that a total of 170 million bags of coffee weighing 60 kg each were produced in 2018-2019, the highest coffee production so far in the marketing year, implying that 10.2 million tons of coffee were produced in 2018-2019.

In addition, according to the United States Department of Agriculture (United States Department of Agriculture), global coffee production has shown an upward trend in recent years, with a 4.14% year-on-year increase in global coffee production in 2020 compared with 2019. However, due to factors such as coffee acreage and suitable natural climate, the sustainability of traditional agricultural coffee cultivation has been hit, unable to meet the growing demand for coffee. Growing coffee in the laboratory may help to solve the problem of soaring coffee demand in a sustainable way. Going back to the subject of "cellular" coffee, in fact, the technology of growing coffee in the laboratory is basically the same as "artificial meat", and it is even easier and cheaper to grow coffee than beef. The so-called "cultivating coffee" means that the cells of coffee plants are cultured in the laboratory and then grow through the culture medium. this whole research and development process needs to be shared by scientists in various fields such as plant biotechnology, chemistry and food science.

According to relevant reports, the coffee cells cultivated by Finnish scientists need to obtain the cell line of plant cells in the laboratory, and then put the cell line into a nutrient-rich bioreactor to harvest biomass, which will be dried, roasted and fermented to form coffee that can be brewed.

Arabica coffee cultivated with small fruit coffee leaves

Because plant cells can grow freely and be suspended in the medium, it is easier to scale up, says Rischer of Coffee Haike, which is grown from plant cells in the VTT laboratory in Finland. In addition, cell cultures of different coffee varieties can be established, and coffee with completely different characteristics can be produced by modifying the roasting process. After tasting the first cup of "cell" coffee, the Finnish research team said: the first batch of "cell" coffee smells and tastes like traditional coffee.

Although cultivated coffee is produced in a nutritious medium, the taste of "cellular" coffee is no different from that of ordinary coffee. Haike Rischer said: the plant "cell" coffee breed in the laboratory is Arabica coffee (Coffea arabica), which is no different from ordinary Arabica coffee in aroma and taste. The research team is currently trying to make laboratory-grown coffee available for production, but news from VTT shows that so far VTT's "cellular" coffee is only an experimental drink and still requires FDA regulatory approval to sell it to consumers. "in the most optimistic scenario, it will take four years for the approval process for cell-grown coffee to be approved," says Heikorisher. " * Photo Source: VVT Statista for more information on coffee beans, please follow the coffee workshop (Wechat official account cafe_style) professional coffee knowledge exchange, please add Wechat account kaixinguoguo0925