Just Coffee Cooperative

Show that special someone just how refined your palate is.   El Corazon will hit your heart with its ample acidity. It strikes the palate without hesitation with juicy cherry, tobacco, butter and brown sugar. 

Fragrance: 4.25
Aroma: 4
Acidity: 4
Body: 3.75

Serving suggestion: This would be best as a pour-over or French press, but  its complexity it would go well in most forms.

Order some today.

Sitting in San Cristobal de Las Casas in Chiapas, Mexico things are crystal clear. Underneath the din of organizations in the North clamoring to set the definition and terms of Fair Trade, small-scale coffee farmers-- the original and supposed main beneficiaries of the system(s)-- have a unified opinion that Fair Trade™ has not worked. This of course, on the surface, is not a new revelation. However, where in the past we often discussed Fair Trade as “not working”, we now are closing the book on it-- we are speaking in the past tense. In the wake of FLO's slow and steady sell out of the model to large corporations and TransFair USA's sprint to complete the deal, Fair Trade™ has bitten the dust. Now is the appropriate time to spill an espresso shot in the dirt and say a few words.

From the uprisings that were felt throughout the world, to our own backyard here in Madison, its fair to say that 2011 was a year of movement. The earth started shakin’, people got organized, and exercised compassion over complacence. A revolutionary sentiment filled the air as people responded to these troubled times with a desire for a different world, where relationships and people, rather than greed and power matter. Just when I started to think the world had lost its track, and wondered how much worse things can get, I found myself in this interconnected network of inspiring, active individuals and ideas (both in Madison and abroad), working tirelessly to combat a system bound to fail. As we move into 2012, I’m grateful for those beans that help us to connect, reflect, and progress.

In the world of fair trade coffee, 2011 was a year filled with much excitement matched with many twists, turns, and roadblocks. High prices and rifts in the fair trade movement ruffled up many different aspects of this complicated chain of buying and selling of coffee beans. Throughout the year, green bean prices hit record highs, forcing producers, importers, and roasters alike to be creative in their efforts to secure coffee and invest more time and energy into maintaining long-term partnerships. Together with our chain of cooperatives, we managed to find ways to deal with high prices, relying on the importance of communication, flexibility, and long term relationships to overcome whatever barriers we were met with.

Today I received a note from a good friend who has spent over a decade in the Fair Trade movement. When I say “Fair Trade” here I am making the assumption that you all know exactly what I mean. But as it turns out, that is a pretty big assumption. So I need to explain.

My buddy Bill's message was responding to the current debate in Fair Trade and how it is being framed. On NPR, in the New York Times, and in other outlets it has been reduced to an argument between fully-committed 100% fair trade companies and behemoth multi-national roasters who only buy a small percentage of their beans under “Fair Trade” minimum terms. The tension is described as one between ideologically driven small-scale businesses that move a little FT coffee versus minimally-committed corporations that move huge volumes of FT Certified(TM) beans. This is an important contrast-- and one that deserves to be considered-- but it only tells part of the story.