Wait For It ... Beanless Coffee

By reverse-engineering the coffee bean, Atomo has created a naturally-derived and sustainable coffee with the same caffeine you'd expect and no harsh acid or bitterness.

"The coffee industry is ripe for innovation and change. The acceptance of agriculture alternatives has been proven with meatless meats and dairy-free milks; we want to continue that movement in a category we feel passionate about, coffee."
"[With] reverse-engineered [ground coffee, Atomo aims to produce a more sustainable cup.] We will be a coffee that is around for the next hundred years."
Jarret Stopforth, chief scientist, co-founder, Atomo, Seattle, Washington

"We expect coffee growers to continue to grow coffee in established plantations, but we'd prefer they didn't continue deforestation to plant new crops."
"If you drink 1.5 cups of coffee a day, that equals 14 trees per year, just for  you. By reducing the need for new coffee plantations we can save the remaining forestlands."
Atomo FAQs 

"It’s [the new beanless coffee grounds] not going to be made out of peanut shells. What we’re really excited to do is find a material that we can upcycle — naturally occurring ingredient that is probably a spent item, that is usually thrown away from a different food process and give it life again."
"People’s coffee ritual is very important to them and it’s something they do every morning. And so we want to fit into that ritual, we want to be a part of that, and that’s why we’re coming up with the grounds. So they can just replace [their current coffee] one for one."
Andy Kleitsch, Atomo co-founder

Atomo Image

What an advertising bonanza...what a confluence of issues that a new start-up can utilize to showcase its green credentials! With greater numbers of coffee drinkers emerging year over year, facing climate change, and deforestation along with the struggle of coffee plantations to cope with the ravaging effects on crops of pests and disease, pressure has grown on coffee producers to meet market demand.


Kew researchers discovered earlier in the year that over 60 percent of the world's 124 wild coffee species are being threatened in the forests of Africa, Madagascar, Asia and Australia. The world's preferred bean, representing 60 percent of global product -- Coffee Arabica -- is among the endangered species, along with the other most commonly used bean, Robusta. Bean-free coffee to the rescue!

The ranks of milk-free dairy, plant-based meat and fishless fish has gained yet another companion food of irreproachable derivation; bean-free coffee. Atomo has appeared on the horizon as a new competitor in the world of coffee production, one to be taken seriously, given its green credentials. Billing themselves as "the world's first molecular coffee", the producer speaks enticingly of providing the caffeine of a regular cup of coffee without the bean and its inherent bitterness.

Now how intriguing is that? The company claims to have created its caffeine-rich, beanless-coffee product through adjusting "molecular flavour compounds, using naturally derived sustainable ingredients to produce the smoothest coffee, [the process eradicating harsh bitterness]". Now does that not sound like a formula for success? Would that not appeal to dedicated coffee drinkers around the world dependent on their morning rush?

Far less appealing, however, to the approximately one hundred million people working in the coffee production industry, living for the most part in tropical countries who rely on coffee for their livelihoods. Atomo is not blissfully ignorant of this situation, addressing it in their FAQs with the statement that it is not the company's intention to put farmers out of business, given its initiative in the production of bean-free coffee.

They do point out that one Arabica plant produces 455 grams (one pound) of coffee annually. With the growing demand for coffee, land is continually being cleared of their vital carbon-sink forests to make way for coffee crops. Think of it; daily consumption of a guilt-free coffee substitute that bills itself not as a substitute but an alternative that still promotes itself as genuine coffee whose grind can be used in the very same manner as coffee-coffee. Got that?

"I love coffee, but every day I was adding cream and sugar to mask coffee’s bitter flavor. By replicating the taste, aroma and mouthfeel of coffee, we’ve designed a better tasting coffee that’s also better for the environment", explains Stopforth. "I got all kinds of great ideas. I heard ideas around firefighting robots and all kinds of things. But Jarret said, ‘I want to make coffee without the bean.’ And that was just too good. It blew my mind", added tech veteran Andy Kleitsch, co-founder of Atomo.

Image credit: Atomo

Acutely Environmental or Supremely Opportunistic?

"Cemeteries are really expensive and really terrible, and basically I just knew there had to be something better."
"We're trying to redesign the entire end-of-life experience."
"Some people want a tree that is totally isolated, and some people really want to be around people and be part of a fairy ring."

"The idea is to use cemetery law in the same way that protects normal cemeteries. Our focus is to go and find the most beautiful land in the area around a city … and then we’re protecting that land."

Sandy Gibson, chief executive, Better Place Forests, Santa Cruz, California

(Better Place Forests)

"They just go at night, scatter grandma, have a cup of champagne, and every day they drive by that park they know grandma is there."
"Why would they pay $20,000 to go to a memorial grove when they can scatter at any little park they want to for free?"
John O'Connor, Menlo Park Funerals

"She's about 60 years old [evergreen: madrone, with dark red bark], and I'm 63."
"Looking at her growth pattern you can see things have been hard at times because she's kind of curved, but she made it to the top to get to the sunlight."
Debra Lee, retired administrative assistant, San Jose, California

In the Santa Cruz forest, people can reserve memorial trees where their ashes can be spread after they die. (Better Place Forests)

Environmental consciousness has never been so vibrant. Not a day goes by when the public is not reminded of our stewardship of a planet that we have abused for far too long. People are urged to consider their actions through the lens of personal responsibility to nature, to our natural environment and the pollution we spew throughout our daily lives in energy use and exploiting natural resources. Society in general has become extremely conscious of the fragility of our geology and our environment. Extreme weather events have helped to focus the collective mind.

And now there's a fairly new start-up in -- where else? -- California, that promises to help people when they die to nourish the land. Traditional burials and cemeteries use land in conventional ways long accepted -- so long in fact, that archaeologists have discovered places where bodies have been perfectly preserved long past their thousand-year-old burials. So interment and memorial markers do not only reflect social traditions of hundreds, but of thousands of years. Often, when construction is halted in the middle of cities it is because the dig has unearthed unknown burial sites of antiquity.

There is now a forest south of Silicon Valley advertising their services for a more environmentally astute burial. A forest in Point Arena, south of Mendocino California, as well as another California location in Santa Cruz, has been developed where trees can be 'adopted' as one's final resting place if one thinks of 'dust returning to dust'. The idea is that people are invited to visit the forest as a kind of pre-arrangement, to select a tree that appeals to them and arrange for their ashes to be laid around that tree.

The company is not in the cremation business; the deceased would first have to be cremated, and the ashes brought to the forest to complete 'burial'. After which a plaque is installed similar to a gravestone in concept, identifying the individual whose remains are linked to the tree. The tree is considered the 'forever' home of the buried ashes; should a tree die, it would be replaced. The cost? from $3,000 up to $30,000, depending on the prestige of the tree, though an entry-level $970-communal tree burial is also available.

A trench is dug at the tree's roots -- measuring 90-by-60 centimeters -- the soil mixed with the ashes and with water. The soil is kept moist to enable bacteria to break down the remains. Some people choose to have their ashes mixed with that of their pets. Remember those ancient Egyptian tombs where slaves and animals were buried with their owners? The difference then was that it was in anticipation of renewing life after death and being reunited in the new life with those buried in continued service to the principal.

For an additional fee a digital memorial video can be made, so visitors can view a digital portrait of the deceased. The cemetery-forest competes with traditional funeral and plot burials that run in price from $15,000 to $20,000 in the area. So price comparison advantages the new concept, as well as the allure of the tranquility of a mature forest as the setting for one's final 'resting place'.

In the Santa Cruz forest there are around six thousand trees awaiting adoption. Various coloured ribbons are wrapped about them. Potential clients stroll about in the forest, assessing the qualities of the trees they view and ultimately find one that appeals to them. There is a ceremonial cutting of the ribbon when a customer selects the tree they plan to spend eternity with.

Better Place Forests