Friday 27 Lifestyle | Features Friday, April 23, 2021

This handout photograph released by CRB , IRD-CIRAD, shows harvested Coffea at This handout photograph released by CRB Coffea, IRD-CIRAD, shows harvested Coffea stenophylla at the Coffea Biological Resources Centre/French Agricultural Research Centre for International the Coffea Biological Resources Centre/French Agricultural Research Centre for International Development (CIRAD) on the French Indian Ocean island of Reunion . Development (CIRAD) on the French Indian Ocean island of Reunion. and early 1900s, its popularity spreading to Change brewing importance of conserving the world’s wild the cafes of France. It fell out of use in the Having searched for stenophylla for years, and biodiversity. Researchers say 20th century, vanishing completely from the Davis was aware that historical reports sug- more work needs to be done to work out record in 1954, until scientists finally found it gested it could be as good as Arabica. In his exactly where it could adapt to be grown, but growing in the wild in in 2018 book A Monograph of the Economic Species it could be in tropical areas where Arabica is and set about studying its temperature toler- of the Genus Coffea L, published in 1925, already under pressure from warming. — AFP ance-and its flavor. Last year they carried Ralph Holt Cheney said both local people out a blind taste test with a jury of industry and French merchants in Sierra Leone professionals from brands Nespresso thought the stenophylla beans were “superior and Jacobs Douwe Egberts. to those of all other species”. “It has been “The judges all found it different from shipped to France and sold as best Mocha,” what they know, with vegetal notes,” said he wrote. But Davis said when he was first Delphine Mieulet, scientist at the French able to taste stenophylla in August 2020, his agricultural research centre CIRAD, who led expectations were low. the tasting. The new coffee had notes of “All that changed once we’d sampled the “rose, elderflower, lychee, like the best first cup,” he told AFP. “It was like expecting Arabica”, she told AFP, adding that the sam- vinegar but then tasting fine wine. We simply ple provided was so rare that not everyone did not expect it to taste that good, and were was able to taste it. Mieulet said she was even more surprised that it tasted like confident that the coffee would become Arabica.” Stenophylla is classified as vulnera- commercially available, but said that it might ble on the IUCN Red List of Threatened This handout photograph released by CIRAD, shows take several years. Species and Davis said that showed the the roasting of Coffea stenophylla beans in the sen- This undated handout photograph released by sory analysis laboratory of the French Agricultural Royal Botanical Gardens, shows Coffea Research Centre for International Development Stenophylla fruit at in London. (CIRAD) in Montpellier, southern France.

eruvian officials on Wednesday found in the El Sira reserve in central Peru. area of some 600,000 hectares, where 105 announced the discovery of a brand- “Once again, Peru’s protected natural areas species of reptiles, lizards and snakes have Pnew frog, a spotted brown critter with are making a valuable contribution to sci- been recorded as well as 68 species of an unusual eye coloring and no eardrum, in a ence,” the SERNANP said in a statement. amphibians, mainly toads and frogs. Last natural park in the Amazon jungle. The The previously unknown creature sports a week, the SERNANP announced the discov- jumper belongs to the Pristimantis sira family brown or dark gray body with white spots. It ery of another new frog, of the Gastrotheca Undated handout picture released by the Peruvian that inhabits the mountain forests between has a distinctive cross marking on the iris, genus of tailless amphibians. — AFP National Service of Protected Natural Areas (SER- 1,550-2,200 meters (5,000-7,200 feet) above and a copper-orange ring around the pupil. It NANP) shows a new species of frog belonging to sea level, according to the state service for is also distinguished by having no eardrum. the Pristimantis-sira species. — AFP natural protected areas (SERNANP). It was The El Sira reserve is a protected natural