Fair Trade
Are you a coffeeholic? I mean do you live for that first cup of coffee each morning then pour yourself a bottomless cup? when I was in university - oh so long ago - I rank at least a dozen cups of strong cofee every day, In short I was wired. These days my body won’t take that much and I usually only have 3 or 4 cups a day. In my universe there are Rules for making coffee that if not followed will result in a less than satisfactory cup.
The Rules
- Always buy whole coffee beans and no more than 2 weeks worth at a time
- Keep your beans in a tightly sealed container away from light and heat
- Never make more cups of coffee than there are people drinking it. You can always make more.
- Grind your coffee fresh each time you brew. Use a mill style grinder for a uniform grind
- Use filtered water. The chloramine in municipal water supplies detracts from the lavour
- Use unbleached paper filters - reuseable filters will always retain oils that go rancid
- Bring water to a rapid boil to aerate it then let it cool to 190F before pouring over the grounds. Temerpatures over 205F will damage the aromatic oils in coffee.
- Never try to keep coffee warm on a hot plate. From the moment it is brewed coffee begins to undergo a series of unstoppable chemical changes not the least of which is the loss of its aromatics.
- Never reheat coffee you barbarian. As coffee cools down it becomes more acidic. You can not reverse that and reheating coffee only makes it worse. You want to drink acid …..here’s a beaker of HCL
In addition to that though there is the question of what type of coffee to brew. Much of that is a matter of personal taste - and if you buy the cheap brand name supermarket coffees, you have no taste. There are two main species of coffee, arabica and robusta. As a generality the difference can be summed up as arabica beans have twice the flavour and half the caffeine of robusta beans. Obviously you want the arabica.
Another factor, and the reason for the title of this post, is the origin of the coffee. If you support large corporations that reap humungous profits from the exploitation of peasant growers by paying them only subsistance prices for their beans then by all means buy from whoever you want, just keep in mind that many of the countries that supply us with the majority of our beans also supply us with the bulk of our illicit narcotics. Keeping farmers poor, virtualy enslaved to the multinational corporations, is a good way to ensure they’ll grow other stuff like cocoa, pot and poppies as well. Poverty also breeds terrorism.
However, you do have a choice. There are numerous grower cooperatives that have sprung up that bypass the middlemen and return those extra profits to the farmers where they belong. Such coffee will be labled as Fair Trade coffee. I urge yuo to seek it out and buy it. On average i have found that it costs about $1/lb more. A small price to pay for some social justice. Look for this symbol when you buy your coffee.
Ten years ago the world coffee economy was worth $30 billion, of which producers received $12 bil. Today it is worth $50 bil, with producers receiving just $8 bil. ….more on Fair Trade coffee
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