We can grow meat in a lab. Breast milk too. So why not coffee?

Given how climate change and deforestation have negatively impacted coffee crops worldwide, alternatives to traditional farming methods may be needed in the near future to sustain our ever-growing thirst for coffee morning, noon and night.

Just in time, VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland has successfully produced coffee cells in a bioreactor through cellular agriculture. The innovation can help to make the production of coffee more sustainable. And the first batches produced by the lab smell and taste exactly like conventional coffee.

According to InsideHook, we likely won't see lab-grown coffee as a commercially viable product for another four years or so. Meanwhile, other companies like Atomo are taking a different approach—they're creating “coffee” without using any coffee beans—instead they use upcycled plant-based ingredients with similar compounds to coffee beans.