 “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. |
