In rec.food.cooking, Miche > wrote:
> In article >,
> wrote:
> > In rec.food.cooking, Miche > wrote:
> >
> > > > What is your favorite brand of coffee and why do you like it?
> >
> > > Fairtrade. It tastes good and the growers are paid fair prices for
> > > their produce.
> >
> > Fairtrade is not a brand, but a program.
> Same diff, it says "Fairtrade" on the bag.
Yep. But it comes from a bunch of different sources. It is a
certification, like "Organic".
Just as a point of interest, Fairtrade guarantees the farmers a minimum
price per pound, but farmers get greatly in excess of the Fairtrade price
for truly superior coffee at auction. So while Fairtrade offers a very
good program for farmers, they can do even better by improving their
quality to the point where they produce truly superior coffee.
> > Everything else you said is
> > correct. In general, fairtrade coffee is fairly good. Not the finest,
> > but fairly good.
> And that's good enough for me. It's more important to me that the
> growers are paid a fair price for their produce than I have "picked
> today, roasted ten minutes ago, hand ground" wanky coffee.
But the wanky coffee yields a better price to the farmer than Fairtrade.
One rfc poster gets $16.00/lb. for her truly wonderful coffee, while
Fairtrade pays farmers less than $2.00/lb.
Check out the Kenya auction price results. They are available online.
Panama auction prices are available as well. Wanky coffee routinely sells
for multiples of Fairtrade price.
And not that you are at all interested, but coffee lasts for a year or
more in its green state, and tastes best around 24 hours after roasting.
--
....I'm an air-conditioned gypsy...
- The Who