Coffee Buying Philosophy

When we opened for business in 2006, we decided to use Fair Trade and organic certifications.  We didn’t do this for the certifications themselves; we wanted fair prices and working conditions for coffee farmers and laborers.  We also wanted coffee that was grown in an environmentally responsible manner.  We wanted to take responsibility for what we sold in our stores.

Our conversations with farmers, our research, and our travels have led us to understand we can take much more responsibility for what we sell.  We learned that we cannot rely upon others to tell us where our money goes or from where our coffee comes.  Therefore, we will no longer rely solely on third parties to certify our coffee.

Instead, our purchases will be made in the manner we believe most socially and environmentally responsible based on the socio-economic and political conditions of the country of origin, and with the goal of maximizing transparency.  We will base our decisions on personal experience, interaction, and observation.

We aren’t getting rid of certifications by third parties completely.  We will often use certifying agencies’ guidelines, and our coffees will still be variously certified by Fair Trade Labeling Organizations International, Rainforest Alliance, and organic certification agencies.

Our larger goal in making these changes is to bring you the stories of individual coffee farmers and how our purchases affect them.  Under certain certification systems, in certain countries, it can be difficult to do this.  Where these certification systems do not allow for transparency, we hope to create transparency by establishing the most direct connection possible between us and the farmers who grow our coffee.

Most retailers rely on their roasters, who in turn often rely on third party brokers, to establish a connection with farmers.  But we are going to origin ourselves to verify claims as to how our coffee was sourced and, in the process, establishing farmer relationships.