Recipes Food Cooking

As fresh coffee became more and more the beverage of choice for consumers in the last couple of decades of the twentieth century, this very lucrative industry exploded. Capitalist conglomerates forced third world growers to live at barely subsistence levels while producing coffee that provided immense profits to the corporations.

This was the crisis that took the fair trade movement into the mainstream and out of the shadows, where it had existed since the 1950s. Organic fair trade coffee eventually became the rallying banner behind which even more products began sheltering.

What started with coffee in general and turned into an emphasis on organic fair trade coffee in particular didn’t stop there. After all, small farmers and producers in other industries were also being exploited by large corporations, and they could benefit just as much from fair trade deals.

Fair trade food in general came into its own as a concept, always including environmentally friendly and organic growing methods as criteria for certification. So now you have fair trade fruit, spices, sugar and products like cotton.

Thanks to the fair trade movement, you can now go into entirely fair trade stores and find all sorts of manufactured products, as well as fruit, vegetables, and of course, organic fair trade coffee.

That’s still the granddaddy of them all, recognized as the industry that kick started everything. As people saw farmers being helped in that industry, it inspired them to extend similar help to many others.

It’s become exciting to watch, to see where the fair trade concept is going to land next.

To read more The Story So Far With Certified Organic Fair Trade Coffee

Sitting with your organic blend coffee first thing in the morning, you may be drinking coffee that’s been grown with environmentally sustainable methods and then purchased through the fair trade system.

You may believe you are supporting a branch of the coffee industry that has “gone green” and responsible, while it’s the larger industry that still needs to change its methods. But what you don’t know is that coffee roasting and the other steps in processing the original organic harvest may undo all that good work.

Then the process of coffee roasting itself produces other issues related to pollution and energy use. In handling raw beans, workers inhale dust that can cause severe allergies, and the smoke from the roasting process carries particles of organic matter and gases like sulfur, alcohols and organic acids.

Many roasters are powered by natural gas, leading to CO2 emissions, and even contain a second oven to clean out the polluting particles before venting hot air to the outside, thus losing that heat energy.

More than one coffee company is trying to develop roasters with just one oven, which can catch and re-use that heat energy, but so far the roasting process remains a major source of pollution and energy consumption.

Buying coffee through fair trade retailers may still be the best choice for fair trade and environmental reasons, but even the fair trade industry for coffee has a long way to go before it’s completely green.

Producers still need to find new methods for coffee roasting and hulling, methods that will reduce both water and air pollution and energy consumption. Fair trade may have helped coffee growers, yet what happens to the crops after they are harvested needs to be addressed.

To read more Going Green With Coffee Roasting

There aren’t any types of coffee beans that are intrinsically more “organic” than any other. The differences among the beans lie primarily in the different species, while geographic location, soil content, and finally the growing and roasting methods account for the final flavor and other characteristics.

There are several different species, but two in particular make up about ninety percent of beans used in coffee worldwide. These are the arabica (Coffea arabica) and robusta (Coffea canephora) species. Arabica lends itself more to gourmet coffee or higher quality blends, while robusta is usually used in lower grade blends.

Programs can work to produce fair trade certified coffees from either species. You would think robusta would be a better choice for farmers in these programs, with higher volumes and quicker maturation, but both species are very valuable, so the more salient factor is where these growers live.

Those in northern Africa, Yemen and some Latin American countries will grow Arabica, while central and western African and south Asian farmers grow robusta. Fair trade producers will purchase coffee beans from all the different regions to create different blends.

Obviously, with the arabica coffee beans being more difficult to produce, and the plants more prone to disease and infestation than robusta plants, growing arabica organically can be more difficult, because this means not using either chemical fertilizers or pesticides.

Yet even with these difficulties, the high quality of the fair trade organic coffee blends that include both arabica and robusta make the process or organic cultivation worth not just the extra work, but worth the extra cost as well.

To read more Two Main Types Of Coffee Beans

Many coffee roasters selling coffee that’s fair trade make a point about advertising that their coffee is sold in “whole bean” style, and that may make you wonder if fresh whole bean coffee is somehow connected to fair trade in an intrinsic way.

Nothing could be farther from the truth. Any sort of coffee can come stored in bags of whole beans rather in ground form. Yet the freshness of coffee that comes in whole-bean packages does in fact lend itself quite easily to the fair trade way of doing things.

What makes fresh whole bean coffee different from and perhaps even superior to coffee that’s ground is simply that the consumer rather than the manufacturer takes the final step before the coffee is brewed; the grinding of the beans.

This is significant because as soon as beans are ground, they start losing freshness. Both aroma and taste begin to fade. This process might be arrested via a vacuum-packed container, but the moment the consumer opens that pack, the deterioration picks up again.

However, whole beans keep for weeks longer, so grinding just before brewing leads to fresh coffee that tastes and smells much better.

There is nothing particularly special about fresh whole bean coffee, in the sense that it’s more prevalent in a fair trade context than any other context. Yet fair trade retailers who sell coffee in this form have a small advantage even over non-fair trade establishments selling coffee in whole-bean form.

The time it takes for those beans to get from the farm to the consumer is very likely shorter, and when you combine that with the organic growing methods of the fair trade version, the coffee is likely to be very tasty and fresh indeed.

To read more Differences Between Fair Trade Coffee And Fresh Whole Bean Coffee

If you’re not a coffee connoisseur but know someone who is mad about their coffee, then you may be interested in the sorts of coffee gifts you might give, since you know that will really please them.

Hold onto your hat, though, because the massive coffee industry of growing beans and creating the drink has spawned an entire secondary industry of coffee-related equipment and gifts in which you can become quite lost. If you want to give a gift, it’s likely not enough just to buy coffee at some specialty store. You’ll really need to research accessories too.

When contemplating coffee gifts, the world of accessories is another wide arena to play in. If you know your friend wants a coffee grinder of their own, and you can afford a very expensive gift, you might consider one of the masters in the field, the KitchenAid Pro Line Burr Grinder KPCG100, that has 15 different grind sizes.

But you may prefer to be a little more modest, buying a sleek pot or a package of gourmet coffee in a gift cup.

If your friend has a green thumb, then you might even give one of the most unusual coffee gifts of all, a coffee plant of their own. Some plant nurseries provide these plants, which will grow the beans under the right conditions.

Your friend can harvest this fruit in the autumn, roast in a homemade coffee roaster, and then grind their own coffee. It won’t be gourmet, necessarily, but it can be fun and interesting.

As you research the types of coffee-related gifts you might give your friend, be sure to explore these unique ideas as well as more traditional gifts.

To read more Pleasing Your Friends With Coffee Gifts

Fair trade certified coffee has made a tremendous difference to the lives of many farmers.

This fair trade movement was accomplished partly by removing the “coffee middlemen” from the process, instead having coffee buyers deal directly with farmers or their cooperatives, to pay fair prices and allow growers to make an actual living instead of existing in poverty.

Fair trade hasn’t changed the entire roasted coffee industry, but it has begun to make a dent in how things are done.

But now the internet, to the surprise of many people, may prove to be the new path for middlemen to re-enter the roasted coffee industry. If farmers’ cooperatives could use the internet to sell directly to buyers, that would be one thing.

But almost none do, and instead, other middlemen, like monthly gourmet coffee clubs, add extra layers between the grower and ultimate consumer. Given that the coffee producers they bring to people’s attention already have their own websites, this layer is really unnecessary, but adds further costs to the supply chain.

Eventually, when savings are sought, it’s always the growers whose profits are sacrificed.

A coffee roaster can now, however, engage in what is being called direct trade, bypassing the fair trade business altogether. Direct trade is a return to the original fair trade ideas, of dealing directly with farmers and their cooperatives.

The fact that this practice has emerged in the roasted coffee industry, with its own label and everything, shows just how many buyers feel the original fair trade idea has already been undermined.

With the reappearance of the coffee middlemen and new concessions being made to corporations, it seems that trade that’s fair to coffee growers must be reinvented yet again.

To read more Buying Fair Trade Roasted Coffee

Organic coffee and coffee that’s fair trade aren’t necessarily the same thing, but in most cases the two designations easily go hand in hand.

The fair trade movement pushes for direct dealings between coffee buyers and the growers, eliminating the extra costs and unfair prices paid by coffee brokers and instead providing a fair price to the growers for their crops.

But the fair trade food movement also seeks to make the lives of farmers better in other ways. And one way is to help make their farms organic and environmentally sustainable.

The method of growing organic coffee is very different from mass production methods favored by gigantic coffee corporations. Coffee was originally shade-grown, but the corporations demanded that it be grown in the sun to produce higher yields.

Over the years, in Latin America particularly, this has meant large swaths of deforestation, leading to soil erosion and severe loss of biodiversity and bird populations.

With depletion of soil nutrients, it has also meant high use of pesticides and fertilizers. But while returning to organic methods may result in slightly lower yields, it also tends to produce better flavored coffee beans, rich in antioxidants and other nutrients.

People sitting in a coffee shop probably don’t realize just how much devastation in other parts of the world their morning cup might have caused.

But people in the fair trade movement and environmental movements are trying to promote better ways of producing that cup, and having farmers grow organic coffee is one of them.

This is a way of helping coffee bean growers make a good living now, while trying to prevent severe damage in the future.

To read more A Relaxing Morning With Organic Coffee

A fair trade coffee roaster does more than just serve as a processor of raw coffee beans purchased from producers. Many companies that produce coffee buy beans from suppliers without thought to where those suppliers got them, or how the farmers were treated.

But a company that wants to deal in fair trade has to give thought to exactly these issues. This is not a coffee company for whom cost and profit are all that matters. A fair trade roaster considers ethics and equity in its purchasing choices, right back to the plant as it grows in the ground.

Because the fair trade coffee roaster eliminates the middlemen who act as suppliers to the big coffee companies and pays such low prices to farmers, the roaster now has the responsibility to pay a fair price. There is usually a minimum fair price agreed upon by the world certifying agency.

But the fair trade companies go farther, because they also want the coffee to be organic as well as fair trade certified. So they try to provide technical assistance in learning organic farming methods.

These ethical practices have become even more important in the past couple of years, for the fair trade coffee roaster but even more crucially, for farmers themselves. With the per-pound price having collapsed along with the price of rice and other foods, followed by the banking crisis, most coffee growers are now on the verge of starvation.

Even corporations who had jumped on the certified fair trade bandwagon are now paying the lower price, yet are pocketing the gigantic profits from maintaining their coffee products at previous prices.

Ethical coffee buyers believe this is a signal that the entire industry needs restructuring around a fair trade model, before thousands lose their livelihoods or even die.

To read more Fair Trade Coffee Roaster Pays Fair Prices When Purchasing From Farmers

Coffee is often grown in poor countries where the farmers are exploited and underpaid for their produce. You can now buy organic fair trade coffee where the farmers are certified to have received a fair price for their produce.

Rather than sending a donation to help people in the developing world, you can buy fair trade coffee to help farmers maintain autonomy and develop their business. Receiving fair payment can also help their families and send their children to school.

Next time you visit a coffee specialty store, ask for certified organic fair trade coffee beans. If they are not available, request to place an order, to buy coffee where the farmers are rewarded for their efforts.

To read more Ensuring Farmers Receive A Fair Price With Organic Fair Trade Coffee

Coffee lovers know that real coffee is the full flavour of coffee that comes from whole coffee beans placed in a coffee grinder. The grinding process only take a few seconds.

The next step, is to take your freshly ground coffee and place it in the pot of a coffee maker. After you turn on your coffee machine, you should have a delicious cup of coffee in your hands, within a few minutes. Once you taste a freshly ground, full favored cup of coffee made from whole coffee beans, you will never want to go back to instant coffee again.

Many large department stores and some supermarkets sell whole coffee beans, but I have found the best whole coffee beans, including organic coffee beans, in coffee specialty stores, to use with your coffee grinder.

To read more Whole Coffee Beans With Your Coffee Grinder