[MistahBean]

Unfortunately is has been the American way. Few people in the USA think globally, still. They think tribally, and the USA is their tribe. Someday they may evolve to thinking of the world as their home rather than their patch of land within artificial borders...

[Austin]

I think with the global economy tanking, it is becoming more apparent to Americans that we are all in this together. Now whether that changes anything has yet to be seen.

[robinpow]

I agree we (USA) as a culture we don't always think on a global nature. Also many people are unaware, that what we do affects the world. A lady I met in the Netherlands years ago, had a simple way of explaining it to me. "If the U.S. sneezes, we say bless you." Trust me, that wasn't a positive thing! Recent events have shown that, we have a problem and it ripples around the world.

Until the internet, there wasn't any easy and inexpensive way for the average person to access people from other places in the world. Modern technology has made a major change in world communication. For so long it was only want you read in newspapers, magazines and books, unless you were one of the few who was able to travel. Even of the travelers most were tourists who only spent a few days in any given place and didn't have the time to learn much about the culture.

Then you add in the time that we isolated ourselves several times during history. As well as the fact North America is physically isolated from much of the world.

Right now the first generation ever, has the opportunity to openly communicate with most anyone in the world. Also is more likely to be able to travel to most any where. It simply wasn't that long ago, you might have a pen pal overseas that you would snail mail. Travel overseas was only for business men, the rich or you had to save for years for that special vacation.

The world is changing and so are we. However change happens slowly.

Bring it back to coffee, I like the idea of direct buying. Won't work on the big scale, but should make a difference on a smaller one.

Also there is more than 'One American way' doing things. The one mentioned, the other one has been to buy as close to the source as possible, cutting out the middle men. While not as common as years past, if you want to buy a diamond in the U.S. you went to the NYC diamond market. Today you will see outlets and discount stores that advertise they have lower prices because the buy straight from the manufacture.

Middle men are like middle management, many times do nothing more than increase the cost of things.

[MistahBean]

Middle men actually cause problems that we don't tend to think of. They operate in a different way, and they pit one producer against another, essential. Their position is always adversarial to the producer. Their job is usually to get the best quality at the best price... sounds reasonable, but in practice it mostly results in a position along the lines of "If you don't want to take $1.00 a pound for your coffee, we can find somebody else with the same quality that will".

When you buy Direct Trade, you get things like this: Our Indochine Estates producers support dozens of community programs and they have helped their entire geographical reach prosper with their success. They fund these programs by charging us a factor in the price we pay for coffee. If we pay $5 a pound, about $.40 is going to go to their local communities as charitable projects such as waterworks, schools and clinics.

People like this have taken a stand that they want to benefit their communities, and they need buyers (not brokers) who can cover those costs by buying direct. That's the only way you can cover those costs. If we bought through a middleman, he would want 35%, and we can't pay that or we would have to get more for retail than our customers will pay for.

So basically, we have a choice. We can buy coffee through a middleman and pay his cut or buy direct and let the producers get all the money and keep the communities around them moving up and prospering. You can't have both unless you want coffee selling at an unrealistic retail.

[Jim]

Fair trade is better than the system they had before but it costs so much for the farmer that many farms can not participate. When I have the choice, I buy directly from the farmer. Many of them actually have websites now that you can purchase directly from.

[MistahBean]

Hmmm... I had no idea that the farmers had to pay to belong to Fair Trade. That's terrible!

[Spyder]

After some misinformed customers asked about whether our coffees are fair trade and/or certified organic I went straight to our roaster to get the down low. He visits different farms yearly and knows what he's talking about. Basically said to be certified organic a farmer has to shell out alot of $$$ to be certified as well as growing beans in an organic manner. For what he hopes will pay off down the road. He did say our beans are very close to 100% organic, just not certified. On to fair trade... guarantees famers get a fair amount for their beans, but often beans from different farms are pooled together to make this happen. He said the problem with this is if a fantastic or terrible crop pops up there can be difficulty tracking exactly where a specific crop came from since they are often combined from those different areas. Good roasters like repeatability and they like to know exactly what farm a lot comes from.

Bottom line is look for a roaster that buys responsibly. Ours does and like I stated earlier, he visits these farms often. My favorite bean origins I get from him aren't available to him in fair trade or certified organic versions... so be it. I buy what I do because I like the end result. Making it fair trade or organic most definitely couldn't make it better in the cup. Just eases the guilty conscience that people have when they realize how hard these people work to bring coffee to our lives in a daily manner. Anytime somebody complains about fresh coffee being $1~ per oz. retail they simply don't have a clue!

[MistahBean]

Being certified organic is also very difficult for most producers. There are only so many certifying bodies in the world, and oftentimes the logistics of getting certified are simply impossible. It also would unnecessarily add a lot of expense to the price of the coffee.

Again, I think trust is a key thing. People either trust a supply chain or they don't. We tend to mistrust the big business, for good reasons, there are so many ways they can skimp, skip, or exploit in little or big ways, not to mention that their record of honesty is always suspect. Also, they often don't really have control or knowledge about the origins of some of the beans they buy from brokers.

Smaller suppliers live or die by their reputations so they tend to be more honest, in our experience.

We hear very often that the beans are responsibly cultivated in shade and that a minimum of fertilizer and pesticide is used. This is generally true of most farms that do shade-grow, because if they are cultivating the coffees in shade it stands to reason that the coffees are healthier and need less intervention, and also, if they care enough to do that then they typically are responsible in other ways.

What most people are trying to avoid is the abused coffee harvest where plants are cultivated through forceful and irresponsible means - in denuded locations, with lots of fertilizer and pesticide to keep yield up and labor down. It's pretty much and "either/or" situation, you tend to have one or the other. If the growers are responsible, the coffee will be sustainably grown and healthy enough for 98% of consumers.

There are those who must have certified 100% organic for health reasons, like allergies to certain chemicals, so they really do need those certifications.