Showing posts with label Coffee. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Coffee. Show all posts

Sunday, January 8, 2012

Organic Coffee Beans - Are They Worth It?

!±8± Organic Coffee Beans - Are They Worth It?

Is it worth it to buy organic coffee beans? There are lots of things to be said for buying organic products, and coffee is just like any other organically grown product. If you ask me, organic farmers and harvesters are paving the way for the future. Farming practices that are feasible and sound without using chemical pesticides, fertilizers, and other harmful agents are quickly becoming very popular, and for good reason. We all need to be conscious of the health risks that chemical farming poses to our own bodies, to wildlife, and to the environment. Whenever we can, it's the responsible choice to grow organic.

U.S. organically grown coffee beans have to go through a detailed certification process by an agency under the USDA (United States Department of Agriculture.) Organic coffee has to meet a number of criteria before it can get certification. For example, to get certification a crop must grow for at least 3 years without synthetic and chemical pesticides or fertilizers. The field also has to follow a crop rotation program that is sustainable in the long-run to avoid soil depletion and erosion, as well as deterring pests from eating crops.

Anybody can vouch for the fact that seeing organic products-especially food products-in the grocery aisles is more and more common. Any truly healthy diet should contain as much organic food as possible. This includes organic meat, eggs, dairy, and produce. Take any steps you can to reduce your ingestion of potentially harmful chemical additives. If you are a coffee drinker, the coffee that you drink is no exception.

Your first thought is probably how expensive you think organic coffee is going to be, but think again. Browse the Internet for "organic coffee" and you'll see that many online retailers sell organic coffee for about the same price as traditional coffee full of pesticides and synthetic fertilizers. And some organic growers even grow their beans under rainforest-preserving shade trees that promote the vast array of bird life in the skies.

Even if the idea of saving the rainforest and endangered bird species doesn't matter to you, it's still important for your own health to go organic. Organic food is natural and good for you. And it taste great too. We can play a part in acting responsibly toward Mother Earth and drink our coffee in a more healthful way by buying organic coffee beans. Just make sure that your coffee is certified organic by an independent organization.


Organic Coffee Beans - Are They Worth It?

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Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Arirang TV: Korean Coffee

Our third segment with Arirang TV. This one's on Korean Coffee. For more, go to www.eatyourkimchi.com --The Gear-- Shot on a Canon 550d and Tokina 11-16mm lens and Canon 50mm lens. Edited in Final Cut Pro. Music made in Garageband. I don't know what camera Arirang TV was using, but it's big. --Translated by-- [닉쑤] Enjoy Your Happy Life~*: nixmin82.tistory.com

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Friday, November 11, 2011

What is Sustainable Coffee and How Does it Affect My Wake Cup?

!±8± What is Sustainable Coffee and How Does it Affect My Wake Cup?

Gourmet coffee lovers have been seeing a few new terms in the
local premium coffee shop as they file past the seasonal retail
displays of roasted whole bean bagged coffees. Phrases include
eco-friendly, organic, shade grown, fair trade and certified
sustainable. Most often those beans seem to the casual buyer to
be simply more expensive than the corporate mega-brands.

But these few phrases represent far more than at first glance,
including economic and social gains for the growing regions and
farmers, harvesters and processors of green coffee beans at the
local level. Sustainable coffee means premium prices and quality
coffee due to organic farming practices, fair market payment for
beans to local growers and quality controls being adopted by the
"certified" coffee brands.

Those premium coffee prices reflect growing concerns worldwide
of paying fair wages to growers, using more expensive
ecologically friendly organic farming practices, better pay for
traditionally underpaid harvesters and processing workers and
strict quality controls being adopted for "certified sustainable
coffees."

Daniele Giovannucci consults with governments, international
agencies, and businesses on coffee markets and production
strategies to improve competitiveness and support innovative
environmental and rural poverty reduction work. Giovannucci has
authored exhaustive studies, including the 2003, "The State of
Sustainable Coffee Report - A Study of Twelve Major Markets."

http://www.cec.org/files/PDF/ECONOMY/CoffeeSurvey_EN.pdf

This study discusses coffee market forces in Europe and Japan
and the growth of sustainable coffee around the world,
estimating that fair trade, organic, and eco-friendly coffees
represent less than 2 percent of coffee consumption in developed
markets.

Another Giovannucci authored study, "Sustainable Coffee Survey
of the North American Specialty Coffee Industry," he estimates
the Global market for sustainable coffee to be approximately
5 million retail for over a million 60 kilo (about 132
pounds) bags of green coffee beans.

http://www.eftafairtrade.org/Document.asp?DocID=391&tod=21534

It is estimated that growers of certified sustainable coffees
can nearly double their income from otherwise depressed coffee
prices. So economically challenged third world countries see
small farmers adopting organic growing techniques as a ticket
out of poverty and subsistence. Corporate buyers are attracted
to sustainable growers by consumer goodwill and health concerns
related to those organically grown coffees. This leads to
dubious claims by some of the corporate coffee representatives
and has lead to the need for certification authorities.

One group, Fairtrade Labeling Organizations International (FLO)
has been active in monitoring and certifying, auditing and
verifying standards for sustainable coffees. Another, named
Transfair USA, carries on similar activities in the American
coffee market. Consumers are justifiably confused when many
terms are applied to sustainable coffees and fail to
differentiate between organic, eco-friendly, fair trade and
sustainable terms.

Premium prices are sometimes supported by certification,
labeling and monitoring by third-party organizations and
sometimes by local governments such as the "Jamaica Coffee
Industry Board." But some labeling is simply slick sales and PR
by greedy corporations seeking premium prices for average coffee
beans, so support for labeling initiatives and independent
certification is growing.

Fair Trade and sustainable coffees are seeing increasing
production in Central and South American growing regions, most
notably in Mexico and Peru. Columbia has seen some pressure and
attempts to divert production of cocaine with coffee crops for
the fair trade market with little major success to report so
far. Uganda, Tanzania and Ethiopia are big participants in
sustainable coffees in Africa while East Timor, India and
Indonesia are major supporters of sustainable coffee in Asia.

With the North American coffee market dominated by multinational
giants Sara Lee, Kraft and Procter & Gamble, little interest has
been shown in adopting sustainable coffee by major corporate
coffee producers. Meanwhile, Brazil and Vietnam, the world's No.
1 and No. 2 coffee producers, respectively are flooding the
market with poor quality beans and driving down coffee prices.

But major grocery chains are seeing demand for sustainable
coffee and may adopt fair trade and organic coffees to sell
nationwide at Safeway, Kroger and Albertson's stores. Increases
in availability, demand and awareness of sustainable coffee are
leading to more of the same in a spiraling increase for fair
trade organic and shade coffees in premium markets. Some
sustainable coffees are even finding their way into instant
coffees, but the vast majority of the sustainable market is in
premium and specialty markets.

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What is Sustainable Coffee and How Does it Affect My Wake Cup?

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