Today I went to an event held by the roaster for the coffee bar that I work at. I learned a lot about coffee: about brew methods, equipment, taste profiles, and farming/importing. It was fun and informative, but most of all it was very encouraging.
Coffee is the second most legally traded commodity in the world. The only thing higher is oil. An incredible amount of that traded coffee ends up in a can on a shelf at Meijer, and brewed at Starbucks or bigby. But there is an amount of it that ends up in the hands of a crafter of sorts. That is my role. I take a product that was planted and raised to be an excellent bean, and roasted to be an excellent coffee, and I do everything I can to ensure it's excellence in the final product.
In the last five years there has been a culture of excellence surrounding specialty coffee. More and more coffee shops and roasters have popped up that invest extreme care into the product, as well as home baristas and roasters. I myself have only entered into this world in the last two years, but after joining this culture of excellence, I have found something that comes with it which may excite me even more: a culture of fair and sustainable trading.
In the world today, the farmer is almost always the little guy. But the same people who come around the product for excellence come around the process for fairness. The roaster I was visiting today has a few partnership farms, where they buy the entire crop of the farm, and after working through the international trade stipulations, almost write a check directly to the farmer. They regularly visit the farmer, and work with the farmer, exploring technology and other means to create a better product and trade in a more fair way.
I also had the opportunity to talk with a guy who works for a micro-loan company that works for coffee farmers. The company works in a way that tries to get the farmer the best deal for the beans. The process is something of a meritocracy, where the farmer with the best quality beans gets the best price. One farmer he worked with told him this year was the first year he was going into next season's crop without already owing money on it.
All of this gets me excited at the effort of many, and makes me want to educate those who do not know. So with my blog comes a challenge: first, next time you buy a cup of coffee, ask the barista about the care that he/she invests in the product and the process and second, feel good about yourself when you spend an extra buck on a cup of coffee that not only tastes great, but is the product of a process that tries to fairly reward all those involved.
Grace and peace,
Ben
