Making the World of Coffee a Better Place

Long before Starbucks moved into every crack of the known universe, I learned the joys of drinking quality coffee and lattes from a place in Raleigh, NC known as Cup-a-Joe. As coffee houses go, it was a dive. 2nd- and 3rd-hand metal tables from our grandmothers’ kitchens (that always snagged my pants), beat up old airplane seats and graffiti decorated the place. People could smoke and Bohemians, executives, and NC State students of all stripe all sipped comfortably together like they were from the same family. Musicians played in a nook on the weekends. And that smell! They roasted their own, so that godawful pungent odor filled your nostrils. An acquired taste for sure, but I grew to long for that smell.

Word was they served 3000 cups a day from 6am to midnight. It’s still the best place in America to find a good cup of joe. No sanitized Starbucks comes close.

Because of a recent report on the National Geographic Channel, an article in my church bulletin (pg. 24), and a visit to a local gift shop, I’m trying to change my coffee buying habits. I’m coming to learn about the importance of buying “fair trade” products–particularly coffee.Turns out that–not unlike post-civil war America where slavery was replaced by sharecropping (slavery through debt management)–the largest coffee conglomerates in the world (like Maxwell House, Sara Lee, Folgers, and Starbucks) once wiped out rich rainforests to create coffee farms and now contract farmers in traditional sharecropping fashion to produce what has become the world’s Number 2 (behind oil) commodity.

Enter ‘”fair trade.” Basically, coffee certified as “fair trade” means that the deal struck between the buyers and the coffee farmers is intended to provide (among other things) a “living wage” to the farmer. No sharecropping. No (what amounts to) slave labor. And with that comes more environmentally safe (organic), estate (single farm), and usually higher quality java. Take a look around in the marketplace and you will see lesser-known brands of coffee stamping “certified fair trade” symbols on their bags. Even Starbucks is getting on this bandwagon and offering a small percentage (6) of their coffee from this family friendly, globally-aware reserve of beans. All the coffee at Whole Foods is supposedly either fair trade, estate, or organic. By giving us the fair trade choice, some in the marketplace offer us the opportunity to make the world a more just place.

Yes, fair trade coffee often costs a little more. But if you are reading this blog, and surfing the net, you, like me, can probably afford the extra buck. When you can, choose fair trade. When we do, we are sending a message to the big conglomerates to take better care of the people who produce (what one of my workmates calls) “the nectar of the gods,” and we can know we are not drinking from the sisterns of some of the world’s most destitute people.

P.S. Imagine what could happen in the world if businesses insisted on using only fair trade coffee at their employee coffee stations! Hotels too!