Sierra Coffee

Thanks to my friend Rob (who lives full-time in the real world, rather than the Internet, so he'll never see this) for pointing me in the direction of some great little coffee articles in Sierra magazine. I send my students browsing in the online version of the magazine every semester to bring me back the best articles, so I might have found this eventually, but Rob found it for me first in the current print edition.

Searching the magazine -- which is the official publication of North America's original environmental organization -- I actually found three interesting little articles related to coffee and the environment.

Many of us know that coffee grounds are great for garden composting -- come see my hydrangeas some time -- but this Green Tip article provides some details about this, and links to many additional suggestions. The College Buzz article describes nationwide efforts to bring socially and environmentally sustainable coffee to campuses. I'm proud to say that our own Social Justice League students at BSC have been working very effectively in this direction -- with some changes already taking place and more to come.

The article that Rob mentioned originally is called Sustained Buzz, in which five coffee experts are asked to recommend coffees -- other than their own -- that provide good quality and good results for the environment. I was very pleased that Green Mountain Coffee's Lindsey Bolger recommends the coffee of Selva Negra where -- ironically -- I first met Bolger's colleague Rick Peyser and others from Green Mountain. In January 2010, I will be taking students to Selva Negra for the fourth time, and I agree that this is truly one of the world's most enjoyable coffees. During our annual coffee tasting in April 2009, Selva Negra was by far the most popular offering.

Later in the spring of 2009, we had the great privilege of Selva Negra proprietor Mausi Kuhl visiting our campus to describe some of the extraordinary ecological projects that make Selva Negra a place that grows both organic coffee and organic farmers!

Fair Trade: What Price for Good Coffee?

Thanks to my friend Henry Lucas at the Spellman Museum for pointing out this important article from Time. The article describes efforts to raise the fair-trade minimum price from $1.35 to $2 per pound of coffee. It is a risky but perhaps necessary proposition. Some of my industry contacts quoted in the article express dismay that farm families are not adequately compensated, even at fair-trade prices. But a dramatic increase could greatly limit the number of families benefiting from the programs, and even well-meaning consumers might balk at paying the real price of production.

Play Fair

Dean has struck again! Coffee is not the only industry that treats its producers unfairly. Dean Cycon is supporting fair trade in manufacturing -- something that the world could use much more of. By supporting a fair-trade factory in Pakistan, Dean is also doing a critical bit of public diplomacy. The more good will that is spread in this critical part of the world, the better.

In Venezuela, Plantations of Cacao Stir Bitterness

Meridith Kohut for The New York Times

Chocolate and coffee taste great together -- I like a roasted coffee bean covered in dark chocolate, or an extra-dark bar with the coffee chopped up in it. And of course there is mocha!

The two share more than caffeine and rich flavor, however. Coffee and cacao can grow in similar climates and can have regionally distinctive flavor like wine. Most of all, they share a similar political economy. This New York Times article focuses on Venezuela, but it is true everywhere that cacao, like coffee, is rarely as lucrative for the grower as it is for those process it for gourmet markets.

On my next coffee tour, in fact, we will include a day or two in the nascent cacao cooperatives of northern Nicaragua. There, independent farmers are just beginning to get organized and to take control of the production chain, so that they can share in the profits. Otherwise, post-colonial trading patterns persist, ensuring a wide gulf between producers and consumers.

Pura Vida -- Coffee for Good

Although I've been without television for close to seven years now, I don't miss out, because friends look out for me and let me know whenever something really important is on. Two different friends let me know about this story, which aired on PBS a couple of days ago.

It concerns Pura Vida, a coffee company that was started by a former Microsoft executive and that directs all of its profits toward development projects in coffee-producing communities.

This video report describes some of the projects the company has sponsored, and explains that the coffee is sold on several hundred college campuses. Once I saw the story, I remembered buying some of this coffee at Emerson College just before heading over to the David Byrne concert last Halloween. As we move toward fair-trade on our own campus, this is one company to keep in mind!