Opinion Climate change is likely to affect the taste of your G&T

Few things say summer like the clink of ice in a gin and tonic. But purists may soon find their G&T tastes less like a zephyr and more like a shrug in a highball glass. Climate change has been reshaping coastlines and collapsing ecosystems. Now, it’s altering something subtler though no less evocative: Flavour. A study from Edinburgh’s Heriot-Watt University reveals that changing weather patterns are muting the signature aromatics of juniper — the cornerstone of gin. Wetter weather can reduce the plant’s volatile compounds, dulling the woody, piny clarity that is the defining feature of a good gin and tonic. One may be forgiven for thinking this to be a minor concern amid planetary upheaval, but each fading taste also signifies a loss of memory, culture, and craft.

Juniper joins a growing list of ingredients caught in the climate-change crossfire. Coffee is losing its acidity as warming temperatures push beans to ripen too quickly. Chocolate may become scarcer as cocoa trees struggle with heat and disease in West Africa. In Bordeaux and Burgundy, premature grape harvests are changing the character and complexity of wines. Hops, essential to beer’s aroma and bitterness, are facing declining yields in Europe. The atlas of taste is being redrawn one ecological shift at a time.

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To dismiss this as gourmand hand-wringing is to miss the point. Taste is terroir — it reflects land and labour, the slow alchemy of ecology and identity. The sensory richness of a drink or dish is the product of centuries of adaptation between humans and their environment — agriculture both shapes and is shaped by climate change. As this balance becomes precarious, the consequences extend well beyond the table. So, the next time one raises a toast, savour it slowly. The world as one has tasted it is changing, one sip at a time.