 “I guess people are just picky about how their coffee tastes,” Barista at northern California Starbucks. |
| I went to Starbucks this morning to buy a pound of Cafe Estima Fair Trade coffee. I asked the barista who rang up my order if Cafe Estima was popular. She said, “No. It is not even in the top ten bestsellers.” Considering I was standing in a Starbucks in Silicon Valley where the promotion of Fair Trade products abounds, it surprised me to discover it was not selling well. I asked her the reason for the poor sales. She shrugged and said, “I guess people are just picky about how their coffee tastes.”
This got me to wondering about the whole Fair Trade coffee situation. I happen to love the flavor of Café Estima so it is not a sacrifice for me to buy it. However, not everyone feels the same. I read on Berin Kinsman’s UncleBear blog that he thinks Café Estima tastes like “burnt ass.” Apparently, he is in good company. As I investigated the “burnt ass” issue I learned that Fair Trade does not incentivize quality. Fair Trade farmers typically sell in both the Fair Trade and open market. The price in the open market is determined solely by quality so farmers sell their best beans there. Since there are price guarantees in the Fair Trade market, they dump their poorer beans there. The Fair Trade co-operatives mix all of the farmers’ beans together and the co-op receives the money so there is no incentive to individual farmers to improve the quality of their beans or experiment with new farming techniques. Bottom line: If you like the taste of Fair Trade coffee, buy it. If not, this is one you can skip without feeling guilty. Buying Fair Trade coffee is not necessarily a good deed and is not worth the sacrifice if you don’t like the flavor. Local government politics are the real source of the poor coffee farmers’ plight and our Fair Trade initiatives do nothing to solve the core problem. All in all Fair Trade might just be a way for affluent coffee drinkers to make themselves feel better while sipping their half caf soy lattes at Starbucks. |
June 13th, 2008 at 11:56 am
Nice writing style. Looking forward to reading more from you.
Chris Moran
June 16th, 2008 at 7:53 am
“All in all Fair Trade might just be a way for affluent coffee drinkers to make themselves feel better while sipping their half caf soy lattes at Starbucks.”
are you kidding me? Do some research lady. First of all, Cafe Estima is not an espresso roast, and the only to have any fair trade served to you at a Starbucks is to ask for it and they put it through a french press. And it’s not fair to lump all coffee roasters in with Starbucks. It’s my pleasure to inform you that they absolutely burn all of their beans. The fact that Berin Kinsman thinks it taste’s like burnt ass has more to do with how Starbucks roasts the coffee than where it came from or how much it costs. The fact of the matter is that Starbucks makes money by buying the most green / raw coffee they can for the lowest prices and then burning everything so that you and I don’t know about the lack of quality. They’ve tricked the world into believing that they have the best coffee by burning it all and making bumbling 40-somethings like yourself think that you’re a coffee connoisseur when you clearly have no clue. Do you ever go to any independent coffee shops? Or were you not aware that those existed? Of course you might feel a little out of place since there won’t be other people there with $3,000 King Charles.
Secondly, have you ever been to a coffee farm? And the apparent experts whose vitriol you’re reading, have they ever been to a coffee farm? Have you seen the raw coffees side by side and seen what gets sent to fair traders? Save your armchair economics, do some traveling, and for god sakes do some research. The fair trade price per pound is merely a floor and sustains .10 cents higher than the market whenever the market surpasses the floor price.
“Local government politics are the real source of the poor coffee farmers’ plight and our Fair Trade initiatives do nothing to solve the core problem.”—-again, you need to do some research. You are so far off you have no idea. I’m not even going to write anymore. You’re helping nobody by bashing something so noble as Fair Trade.
These sites are worth your time if you can drag yourself away from your precious soy latte:
http://www.oxfamamerica.org/whatwedo/campaigns/coffee/fair-trade-resource-center
http://www.fairtraderesource.org/learn-up/faq/
http://www.coopamerica.org/programs/fairtrade/
June 27th, 2008 at 9:17 am
I was shocked to read this post on a “green” blog. What are your sources for your claims that “fair trade does not incentivize quality” or “local government politics are the real source of the poor coffee farmers’ plight”? This is blatantly false information. Here are the facts:
-According to Global Exchange, who I see you have linked to on your home page, there are numerous incentives for fair trade coffee farmers to improve their quality, namely premiums they are paid above the floor fair trade price of $1.26/ pound for higher quality beans and/ or organically grown beans. Source: http://www.globalexchange.org/campaigns/fairtrade/coffee/faq.html
-Fair trade not only provides an incentive for quality, it requires strict environmental standards including growing under a canopy of trees (no slash-and-burn methods) and dangerous agrochemicals are banned. Source: http://www.globalexchange.org/campaigns/fairtrade/coffee/faq.html
-While local governments may play a role in supporting the unjust trading systems involving multiple middlemen and low prices for farmers, the causes of low coffee prices are not so simplistic and are in fact much more global in scale. See Oxfam’s report: http://www.oxfamamerica.org/newsandpublications/publications/research_reports/mugged
On the question of quality, I can personally attest to tasting some less than delicious fair trade coffees. However the vast majority are wonderful and are widely available through companies such as Global Exchange, Equal Exchange, Cafe Mam, Trader Joe’s and many, many more.
I am disappointed that a “green” blogger is pushing aside fair trade coffee so lightly, especially when every major NGO and human rights organization supports fair trade and the value it holds for farmers. Please research the topic more thoroughly and see if you still come to the same conclusions.
October 28th, 2008 at 9:41 pm
Well written article.
November 12th, 2008 at 7:44 pm
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December 9th, 2008 at 4:06 pm
To Beth Sethi,
Fair trade does not equal shade grown or organic which you implied in your article. Those are certified by completely different organizations. So while a bag of coffee may be all three things it is not necessarily so and actually it is very difficult for farmers to get certified for even one.
January 31st, 2009 at 8:34 pm
Kala,
Fair trade does indeed equal shade-grown, at least in more than 85% of fair trade coffee. Please see this link (also provided in my original post above) from Global Exchange: http://www.globalexchange.org/campaigns/fairtrade/coffee/faq.html. Scroll down on that page to the bit about environmental standards of fair trade coffee. Also I did not claim all fair trade coffee is organic, although over half of it is (again see the above link) but it is correct that many dangerous agro-chemicals are not allowed in fair trade coffee. I’m not sure why this is a controversy. Environmental standards are a fact in order to receive fair trade certification and even a small amount of research will support this.
Beth