One Organic Grande Latte Please

Flipping through a magazine recently, I read that one gourmet coffee to go at your local Starbuck's or downtown coffee house costs more than a pound of organic chicken does in most natural products stores. And that got me to thinking about coffee – maybe because I'm drinking coffee right now and maybe because I just wrote a blog about chicken? Who knows? But coffee is something that I need...want...desire...just flat out require to start my day, complete a good meal, or round out a million other instances in my life.

Now not to get into or start the debate on the goodness or badness of coffee – I'm just saying, coffee is good for me. However, my cup of gourmet coffee to-go generally costs a little more than just your standard double mocha frappuccino or grande latte please – because I always request the organic blend of coffee.

Why go organic with the beans? Well, basically for the same reason you choose organic on everything else – no harmful pesticides and fertilizers. Coffee generally is a heavily sprayed crop, so drinking organic coffee will reduce or eliminate the exposure to toxic herbicides, pesticides and fertilizers. According to the Organic Trade Association, in order for coffee to be certified and sold as organic in the U.S., it must have been grown on land without synthetic pesticides or other prohibited substances, there must be a sufficient buffer between the organic coffee and the nearest conventional crop, and the farmer must have a sustainable crop rotation plan to prevent erosion, the depletion of soil nutrients, and control for pests.

In order for a bean to be labeled “Fair Trade” labor and trade standards provide producers with a guaranteed price, which means the farmers are making a living wage and being paid fairly for their crops. All fair trade coffee is not necessarily organic, however, fair trade does require environmental stewardship and approximately 85% of all Fair Trade Certified coffee sold in the U.S. is also certified organic.

For hundreds of years, coffee plants were grown using organic practices, inter-planting coffee with shade trees, composting and eliminating harmful chemicals. These traditional, sustainable plantations often yield the best tasting variety of coffee. Today, however, very few beans are grown using traditional methods. The market is flooded with inexpensive, low quality coffee in “full-sun” coffee fields – which not only are they sprayed and treated with harmful chemicals, it also means deforestation and heavy environmental tolls.

So at the end of the day...or start of the morning, one thing to not skimp on is coffee. Make sure it is organic, preferably fair trade. I promise it just tastes better and you will feel better about drinking it, so brew it up and take a moment to enjoy each and every drop.