Wretched Excess Dept: Coffee at $15 Per Cup
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 08.15.07
coffee nursery at Hacienda la Esmeralda
In Vancouver, a good cup of coffee costs fifteen bucks. "It reminds me of a fine glass of cognac," said customer Borislav Trifonov, as he sat sipping the pricey dark brew at Caffe Artigiano in downtown Vancouver yesterday afternoon. "You detect all kinds of flavours," Mr. Trifonov said. "Flowery," he said was the most apt description.
It is Hacienda la Esmeralda Especial, which snagged the "world's best coffee" title at the Specialty Coffee Association of America's Roasters Guild Cupping Pavilion Competition and got US$ 130 per pound at the wholesale auction. You can take it home from the Caffe Artigiano for C$135 for half a pound.
The growers profess sustainability and fair trade practices: "First comes sustainability of people. Our business practices must always be such that our products will readily sell at a level which will keep everyone (owners and workers) fed, clothed, educated and in good health." however it cannot be classed as Fair Trade, which is applied to co-ops, not private farms.
Nor is it organic. "To not apply adequate mineral fertilizers, I consider a criminal failure of land stewardship. After repeated crops of tobacco were farmed in the southeastern US, the land become mineral depleted, abandoned, ruined, and farming ‘unsustainable’. This sort of error cannot be allowed to repeat itself in the name of ‘organic’ farming." They also appear to use fungicides.
They do use hydroelectricity and wood fired dryers to be self sufficient and sustainable in their energy use.
So is it worth fifteen bucks a cup? Dejan Bozic, general manager of Caffe Artigiano, said the specialty coffee is intended for special occasions - not as a means to fuel up on caffeine. "Lots of people aren't so rich," Mr. Bozic noted. "It's best as a treat, just to make your life better and happier for a few seconds."
TreeHugger might suggest that paying a premium for fair trade, shade grown organic coffee makes sense but that this is ridiculous.
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At fifteen dollars per cup, I would be attempting to savour and make up qualitative descriptions of its flavour as well. Sustainability also requires accessibility - if its prices are prohibitive, if the money goes into a few men's pockets, then it's a novelty, not the necessity many people view things like coffee to be.
Should we support fair trade? Of course; it benefits the environment through the people it supports. But it has to go to a larger economy than a special farm. If one place demanding 'fair trade' prices, while many others are still selling 'regular' beans at market averages, then the others have to damage the environment in order to make a minimal profit to maintain a marginal standard of living, while the one farm affords to maintain an impressive villa.
Fair trade, yes. But driving to Cafe Artigiano in a Tesla Roadster should not be the prerequisite to drinking a good cup of coffee.
And mineral depletion is usually corrected by means of proper crop rotation, cover crops and composting if my gardening memory serves me.
Where does the negative attitude come from?
While not ideal, it sounds to me like the practices used to produce this coffee are still better than 95% of the coffee drank all around the world.
Furthermore, the price is determined by an auction at one of the largest gatherings of coffee experts in the world. They believe that it is worth that much.
Perhaps I've missed it, but where are all the posts complaining about expensive wines, and the flaws in their environmental commitments? The story following this about Brangelina's "eco-friendly" winery purchase didn't give them anywhere near the third degree you are laying on these coffee producers.
Finally, shouldn't TreeHugger be celebrating a product that convinces consumers it's worth paying for quality? Isn't the key hurdle to the environmental movement getting consumers to stop focusing on price as the bottom line?
Charge what you want, coffee still tastes, looks, and smells like dirt.
CHS -- whatever, hippies love dirt
What's ridiculous is paying more per cup for the convenient, and flawed, guilt relief that certification labels sell you -- but not expecting to get any quality in return.
So what is more obscene?
Hacienda La Esmeralda is also Rainforest Alliance Certified.
As Alec stated, this varietal coffee was sold at auction, and set a record price per pound in the process. The win at the SCAA competition guaranteed a high price, but no one expected $130/lb.
If you want to learn more, or read/join the many discussions about it, check out www.coffeegeek.com and search for 'esmeralda'.
Josh
I was a bit unsettled at Treehugger's take on this. The coffee industry has historically been dominated by large Western companies purchasing coffee at such low prices that the wages paid to growers are meager at best. Fortunately, we are beginning to see people and organizations who appreciate the wondrous culinary aspects of truly great coffee and support appropriate prices for such coffees. Programs like Cup of Excellence, while not necessarily requiring "Fair Trade" or "Organic" certification, have allowed for unprecedented wage increases and respect for local growers, which in turn allows them to develop more sustainable practices. People seem to have little problem spending $30 for a decent bottle of wine, and often hundreds for truly great wines, but apparently they balk at spending $15 to experience what is currently considered one of the best coffees in the world. Laughably, the criticism for this shift in coffee culture comes from the same blog that routinely introduces us to beautifully designed products that sell for significant premium over their lesser designed counterparts. I understand that for those who are not coffee enthusiasts, the idea of spending as much for a cup of prepared coffee as you might normally spend for a pound of roasted is shocking. But to refer to it as "Wretched Excess" seems misinformed and impertinent.
This doesn't seem like such a bad idea. This is a coffee for a Sunday afternoon, not a weekday morning. A good martini will set you back $15, and a cheap bottle of wine at a restaurant will cost you $30. It's not something that people will often do (except for the rich executive types), but once in a while it can make for a fun social gathering.