6-Step Program for the Caffeine Addicted
by Michael Graham Richard, Gatineau, Canada on 10.10.06
[This is a guest post by Siel from Green LA Girl. -Ed] Calm your caffeinated panic attack — We're not talking about quitting coffee. This is a 6-step program for drinking better coffee — for the environment, society, and you and your java addiction.
If all the coffee chatter about triple certification labels or the Make Trade Fair campaign gives you nervous heart palpitations and jitters, just follow these half-dozen steps to get on a sustainable, alert-but-not-wigged-out caffeine high.
1. Say bye-bye to yucky coffee. This means a big adieu to Kraft, Nestle, Sara Lee, and Procter & Gamble — AKA the "big four." These coffee biggies helped engineer a huge overproduction of coffee that made coffee farmers dirt poor — a situation dubbed the coffee crisis. The four also got the American public used to drinking swill. If you're drinking canned Folgers coffee, you're probably downing twigs, dust and floor sweepings.
2. Get a local roast. Brew coffee at home? Then get to know your local coffee roaster — You can get a quick list of fair trade coffee roasters in your state here to start. Not only will you support local business, you'll also get tastier, freshly roasted coffee. Plus, you won't incur more food travel miles by having your coffee shipped to you from, say, Seattle. Unless you live in Seattle, in which case you might try Pura Vida or Cafe Humana.
3. Opt for organic and fair trade. Why organic? So people don't have to pick coffee amid pesticides, and so you don't have to drink pesticides. Why fair trade? Fair trade coffee ensures that farmer co-ops receive at least $1.26 per lb of green coffee — a lot more than most coffee farmers get in the commodity market. Finding double-certified (both organic and fair trade) coffee isn't hard — And in fact, it's a fast-growing niche! Chances are, if your coffee roaster offers fair trade, it also offers double-certified coffee; about 80% of the fair trade certified coffee coming into the US is also organic. And if you're up for a challenge, you might look for triple-certification (organic, fair trade, and shade grown), but those are rather tough to find, especially locally.
4. Step away from that Starbucks. Yes, Starbucks gets great PR — They have excellent marketing people. But beyond the miniscule amount of fair trade and organic coffees offered in those ubiquitous stores (the mermaid doesn't have a single blend that's both fair trade AND organic), Starbucks has also been charged with unfair and predatory business practices that drives out local businesses, as well as union-busting. Or if you must go — maybe because all your local indie stores have already gone kaput — take the Starbucks Challenge
5. Check out your local indie coffee shop, especially if they offer organic or fair trade options. If you had a big Starbucks habit, you'll be in for a shock, because each indie coffee shop will be — gasp — different! It'll be a thrilling coffee adventure that'll keep your money in the local economy. Plus, indie coffee shops usually come with a lot of little privileges, like free wifi, locally baked goods, and friendly owners who listen to what you want — and might change things up for you (again, amenities will depend on location). Which brings us to –
6. Convert your coffeehouse. Dilemma: Your coffee shop's cute and local, but it doesn't brew anything organic or fair trade. What's a coffee addict to do? If you're feeling up to it, have a little chat with the owner or other people working there, starting with, "Hey, I love your coffee shop, and I was wondering…." Not that brave? Then send your coffee shop an email: "Hi! My name is [insert name] and I'm a Treehugger! Also, I love your coffee shop, and I would bike over with all my Treehugging friends every morning if you offered organic, fair trade coffee…."
7. Relax with your coffee. Resist the temptation to freak out because you can't find a triple-certified, solar-power-roasted coffee from a local cafe that composts and uses only CFL bulbs. That kind of all-or nothing thinking will only lead to a sad, Nescafe overdose! There is no "perfect" cup of coffee. Plus, each of our situations has its weird quirks. Maybe you're in a town where the only indie coffee shop's owned by a Hummer-loving oil magnate — in which case your best option might be to get the closest Cooperative Coffees company to ship some java over to you, ASAP….
Drink happy, stay caffeinated –
[This is a guest post by Siel from Green LA Girl. Thanks Siel! -Ed]
Thanks for the article, it was very informative. I am confused about one thing in buying locally roasted coffee, and hopefully someone can explain it to me. My extent of understanding the coffee producing process is limited to a Dirty Jobs I saw the other night, so I am probably missing a few key facts. But, from that I learned that they take apx. 7 pounds of coffee "cherries" to produce 1 pound of roasted coffee. I am guessing that very little, if any, coffee is grown in the US due to climate, that the local roasters are shipping in the raw materials, at a 7/1 loss of weight (and I am assuming some amount of loss of volume too). Wouldn't it be better, from a carbon standpoint, to be shipping around already roasted coffee?
Thanks!
-Jason
Nice article!
I get my coffee "green" from sweet maria's. I roast it myself, hand grind it, brew it up in a french press, and take it to work in a ceramic mug. The grinds I compost, the cardboard shipping box I recycle, and my only trash is a large ziplock plastic bag which I actually save for other uses.
If I run out of coffee before I get my next order, I simply don't drink coffee. If you can't not drink coffee for a day or two, you have an addiction you need to take control of.
Jason,
Green coffee, if properly stored, will last 1-2 years. Roasted coffee lasts about a month. In a top down model, you're roasting all your coffee and then trying to sell it before it goes stale. In a bottom up, you're roasting only what you need.
Your 7:1 ratio I think includes the weight of the berry. Green coffee is just the seed and the skin. When you roast it, it's 18% lighter (not 700%) and 50-100% larger in size. So, shipping roasted bean takes up a lot more volume then the difference in weight after roasting.
Great post! I was very happy when Trader Joe's started carrying Fair Trade, Organic, Shade Grown coffee last year - it's tasty, strong, and it's now the only thing I drink whenever possible.
Now if we could just find a competitive bulk supplier for my (large corporate) workplace...
No thanks, I will stick with Starbucks, always good always fresh. But I am still a 'hugger
By the way, you should know that Decaffeinated Coffee Is Not Caffeine-Free. Coffee addicts who switch to decaf for health reasons may not be as free from caffeine's clutches as they think.
That's what the University of Florida research says. The full story appears at http://www.emaxhealth.com/16/7827.html
If you think Starbucks is "always good," then you might be very surprised at what freshly roasted coffee can bring to your taste buds. While I don't bash it as hard as some other coffee fanatics do, there is no doubt that 'Bucks leaves significant room for improvement. Plus, brewing at home allows you to experiment with different kinds of roasts and origins, and you'll save a bundle over coffee shop prices.
i'm extremely stoked to have a Just Us organic/fair trade Cafe' in my little city of Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada...i think i recall my girlfriend talking to one of the six or so fair trade certifiers in Canada and telling us the whole movement started a long time ago in Wolfville, Nova Scotia, where there is the first Just Us Cafe! yay, Nova Scotia!
The folks at the downtown Halifax just Us cafe are great, and the coffee is always great, not to mention they also sell vegan and locally made Pakoras, Samosas, and Chickpea rolls, and with every food purchase you get a complimentary tea or coffee, and that means if you bring a mug they'll fill it for free with a food purchase! and for me, a poor student, that means 3 canadian bucks for a lunch! :)
http://www.justuscoffee.com/
-->Lance
While Starbucks has had some "Predatory Practices", they are one of the few and first companies to offer full insurance to part-time employees (though I'm sure they don't get nearly the discount full-time employees get).
This benefit is HUGE, as most local coffee stores don't offer insurance to even their full-time employees (most of them being students of some sort), much less part-time employees.
They do HAVE fair-trade, organic, and shade-grown coffee, (two organic/shadegrown, one fair trade), vs. Tully's one triple-certified coffee. I would LOVE for them to have more choices, but offering insurance to part-time workers offsets the lack of local roasters in my book.
I'm all up for holding corporations accountable, and don't think that Starbucks should be given a free pass because it treats it's part-timers better than average, but I do think that of all of the corporations out there, Starbucks is probably the least of our worries.
Hi everyone -- Thanks for commenting, and sorry for not getting back to you sooner!
Jason -- As Brenton noted, the coffee that gets shipped to roasters is de-pulped, green coffee (after the red cherry part's been removed), which hopefully answers your shipping Q. Roasted coffee actually has a much larger volume than green coffee, though the weight goes down by about a quarter.
brenton -- I'm actually okay with a mild addiction to caffeine -- after all, all I have to do is brew a fresh cup :P
ProgGrrl -- If you let me know where you work, I can try to find you a nearby coffee company that might work for your workplace --
T L -- I have to agree with anon. If you think Starbucks is always good and always fresh, you're really, really missing out on yummy coffee...
Dusty -- I agree that treating part-time employees nicely is something all companies might do. But I wonder if you might agree that often, companies like Starbucks will do some things in the US that'll make them look really good -- i.e. better employee benefits. And in fact, some of these companies may really WANT to do good for their US employees (vs. just using it for PR).
The problem is that often, companies use those good things as a scrim of sorts for NOT taking responsibility for all of their corporate practices -- i.e. using sweatshops in other countries, etc. We then have a situation where loyal customers and US employees who feel they personally were treated well will fight to defend the company saying "look at the bright side, please" -- while human rights abuses are continuously propaged by the overall business practices of the company.
Lance -- Great to hear about Just Us. And to everyone, thanks for the props :) Happy coffeing --