Fair Trade refers to an equitable and fair partnership between consumers in North America and producers in Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean. The whole idea is to ensure that small farmers and producers are being paid fairly for their products. These increased payments can help otherwise poverty-stricken areas get access to healthcare, education and economic independence. And, beyond that, small farmers are the most environmentally sound farmers/producers available. So, you???re still supporting environmentally friendly practices, and helping fair labor practices span the globe.

Global Exchange, an ???international human rights organization dedicated to promoting social, economic and environmental justice around the world, ??? gives some very compelling reasons you should buy Fair Trade Coffee

It’s a consumer trend. More and more people care about the conditions of the people who produce the products they buy. Coffee is the first commodity in the United States for which there is an independent monitor that guarantees that producers were paid a fair wage for their product and work in decent conditions — a real alternative to sweatshops.

This is a huge industry trend. Across the country, there are over 100 companies that have licensing agreements with TransFair to offer Fair Trade Certified coffee. Major roasters include Starbucks, Tully’s, Peet’s, Equal Exchange, Diedrich, and Green Mountain, serving over 7,000 retail locations, with volumes rising every day.

It’s an environmental issue. Small farmers are the best stewards of the land. When you support Fair Trade, you support the environment. Fair Trade farmers don’t have the capital input to clear forests, buy chemical fertilizers and pesticides. They generally grow small plots of mixed-crop, shade grown coffee organically.

The untold story of the gourmet coffee boom: it’s leaving small farmers behind. Prices are currently at 8-year lows, falling under $.50 per pound in August 2001 — yet retail prices stay high, meaning mass industry profits. Fair Trade brings small farmers into the boom.

Next time you buy your beans, take an extra moment and see if your preferred brand is a Fair Trade producer. If they aren???t, write a letter, and see if you can???t effect some change. Don’t let the overwhelming amount of information turn you off. If you buy Fair Trade, you’re supporting the environment, anti-slavery policy, and much more while still getting an excellent cup of coffee. It’s important to choose your consumer battles, and Fair Trade is worth the extra effort.

For more information, visit Global Exchange???s website.

So, how would one get these tastes at home? Well, I wouldn???t recommend stirring raw pumpkin into your coffee. That sounds less ???delicious,??? and more ???stringy mess.??? But for those like me who need some fail proof methods, it???s not so cut and dried. Some recipes will have you simply sprinkle a store bought pumpkin pie spice blend into your coffee. But I like a little more luxury than that.

My preferred method:
Set a nice, medium roast coffee to brew. While that???s working, warm up about a half cup of heavy cream or half and half in a saucepan. No boiling here, just warming. Sugar the cream to your taste (I pour about 5 teaspoons of sugar in here. Seriously). Brown sugar is best, but work with what you like. Make sure you whisk the sugar and cream until well incorporated. No graininess allowed here. Once your sugar is incorporated, stir in a tablespoon or two of canned pumpkin. Give it a taste, add more pumpkin if desired. Grate a pinch of fresh nutmeg and sprinkle about a teaspoon of cinnamon into the pumpkin cream. Once your coffee is ready, pour in your pumpkin cream. Viola! You can save the leftover pumpkin cream for subsequent use, but I wouldn???t keep it more than a few days.

While sipping my cup of Allegro???s Organic Breakfast blend, I started wondering what the difference was between a Breakfast Blend and any other blend. So I did what any tech-obsessed lady would do. I Googled it. After some clicking around, I found www.coffeereview.com. Wow. A huge resource, it is a little daunting at first glance. But, I found what I was looking for: an article about Breakfast Blends. Kenneth Davids and Danny O???Neill???s article entitled ???Breakfast Blends 2006: An American Tradition Goes Cosmopolitan??? did the research for me: ???A medium-roasted blend containing coffees that are gently but not overbearingly acidy, balanced, intended to be enjoyed black or with just a touch of milk and sugar, but in any case refreshing and delicate enough to sustain multiple refills and complement heavyish eggs-and American breakfasts.??? According to Davids and O???Neill, today???s breakfast blends are very similar to those brewed decades ago in any breakfast diner. As always, some coffee makers updated their flavors, with hints of fruity, muskiness usually characterized by Ethiopian blends (rather than the mostly South/Central American beans used in earlier breakfast blends).

So, while I enjoy experimenting, it turns out I???m a traditional kind of girl at heart. My preference for coffees that I can sip with my morning snack is well met by Allegro???s Organic Breakfast Blend. A nice, not too bitter but very flavorful coffee, I find this one is a little more complex than some other brands. For a largish producer, you could do a lot worse than Allegro. So, a little more informed, I will enjoy my breakfast blend, until I find the next new coffee begging me to taste.

Always a sucker for web research, I went to ciaobellagelato.com, which states, ???Ciao Bella contains 20% air by volume, compared to 60% in most American brands, and contains only 12% butterfat versus 16% in typical ice cream. Ciao Bella’s gelato, based on a family recipe from Torino, Italy is primarily hand-made in small batches with high quality ingredients.??? Sounds delightful. I grabbed a spoon and curled up with my pint.

My first taste: bitter, not much espresso flavor. Hmmmm.

I wasn???t thrilled, but kept scooping small bites into my mouth. By the third bite, I was in love. Allowing the gelato to warm a little really did wonders for the flavor. You can see the ground coffee in the ice cream, and as we all know, you eat with your eyes first. The texture is unbelievably creamy and smooth without the sugary granularity I???ve found in other brands. The sweetness is a smidge less than a sugar-holic like me prefers, but with each bite I was enjoying it more. The coffee flavor is really well balanced with the cream flavor. Basically it tastes like the perfect iced espresso. And because Ciao Bella contains less air than most brands, this was indeed a denser treat than other gelatos. This is truly a treat that is first and foremost espresso, and gelato second. A coffee lovers dream. I???m spoiled by living in a metropolitan area of California, and so I have access to many products that aren???t available elsewhere. But the website has an excellent search feature so you can find the nearest place selling Ciao Bella.

Just a block off the main Jack London Square drag, I found a little shop set far back from the street, 3rd Street Grind. The front of the building is a large open deck with porch-type furniture. The paint on the sign was a bit faded, but the door read ???Open.??? Inside the store were some secondhand furniture, and the most eclectic collection of foodstuffs I???d seen in one coffee shop. Half the food was of the all-natural, organic, locally produced variety. The other half consisted of prepackaged Pop Tarts and candy bars. I ordered an iced espresso (one of my favorite summer beverages) and got to chatting with the person behind the counter.

He told me that 3rd Street Grind has been in that spot for more than a decade, but was bought last year by a man named Kulpreet. Kulpreet has been doing his darndest to breathe new life into the shop. New equipment, new drinks, new products, he???s running the whole gamut. It attracts the least amount of tourist traffic, but does good business from the surrounding office building workers, and lawyers on break from the nearby courthouse. I sipped my iced espresso, which was quite delightful. The barrista was a little inexperienced, but was more than happy to take direction. He knew all your more basic drinks, lattes, mochas etc, but ran into difficulty and annoyance when a teenaged girl walked in and asked for a ???venti mocha frappucino.??? Even after I explained to her that this wasn???t Starbucks, and that the frappucino is a registered trademark, she didn???t quite get it. But the guy behind the counter was more than happy to oblige, taking care to tell her ???your blended iced mocha is ready.???

This shop is still working to find their specific coffee niche, but will bend over backwards to give you what you want. And one thing they do splendidly is espresso. 3rd Street Grind exemplifies exactly the reason I avoid chains in tourist locations. The service is spectacular, few others actually know about it, so there???s rarely a rush. You get a chance to tell them exactly how you like your drink. And I hear the owner???s homemade curry lunches are to die for.

Location: 3rd Street between Broadway and Washington in Oakland???s Historic Jack London Square.

In the just under 7 minute show, Dave begins with a quick piece about home-rigging a popcorn maker to roast his own green coffee beans in one cup batches. The idea looked intriguing. As a newcomer to the coffee world, I???ve been looking for ways to, in terribly clich??d terms, take it the next level. I had hoped Dave would give a little more info, (what better way to use a popcorn machine?) but sadly, a quick glimpse of the beans whirling around and a shot of an electrical panel was all Dave gave.

Dave spends a few minutes with a gourmet coffee buyer. The buyer gives a quick overview of what he looks for when buying new beans for his shop. In such a short time, not much can be said, so the buyer sticks to the big ones for him: sustainable farming, slave-free labor, and darn good flavor.

We???re given a short demonstration on ???cupping,??? the preferred method of coffee tasting for buyers. In this process, a bit of the roasted, ground coffee is poured into a cup, followed by steaming water. The ground coffee creates a crust at the top of the cup. After a few minutes, the crust is broken, allowing a full bouquet of aroma to be released. Dave and the buyer go through a line of different coffees, mentioning things like ???you can really smell the tobacco??? and ???the lemon herbal-ness really comes out.??? After the host gets to smell them all, the crust is pushed aside, and a spoonful of the coffee is slurped for tasting. ???The idea is to spray the coffee all over the palate for a full taste,??? explains the buyer.

An interesting segment on this episode entailed visiting George Howell of Terroir Coffee Company, a coffee connoisseur who is always on the forefront of coffee trends. In fact, he invented the frappucino (his company was then bought by Starbucks who trademarked the name of the drink). George explained the evolution of coffee-fanatics: first the hot topic was where are the beans from, and then came the obsession over how beans are roasted. He claims the next big thing is: how are the green beans treated. ???Since beans are only harvested once per year, storage and shipping of green, un-roasted beans is very important. Too many companies just leave them to sit in mesh bags, allowing the beans to oxidize.??? George???s solution? All his beans are frozen to 40 degrees below zero. And they stay that way until it???s roasting time. Interesting concept. It will be interesting to see if this trend gains momentum. Perhaps in the coming months, we???ll be hearing about Starbucks??? freezers.

Overall, this was a cute Webisode giving a brief overview of coffee for the newcomers. I can definitely see more advanced coffee-fanatics being frustrated at the lack of detailed info, however.

Ingredients:
?? cup of white distilled vinegar
Enough hot, but not boiling, water to fill your pot

Just pour the solution into your pot (mine is a French press) and push the straining apparatus through it several times. Let it sit and soak for at least 15 minutes. If you use a drip-pot, pour this mixture into the water reservoir and turn on the pot to allow the solution to cycle through.

Once your pot has sufficiently soaked, pour out the mixture and thoroughly rinse with warm, soapy water. Trust me on this, if you think you???ve rinsed enough, rinse some more. I can???t tell you how nasty vinegar-flavored coffee is.

I did this with both my French press and with my insulated coffee cup. What a difference in taste. I hadn???t realized just how much old coffee oil was still clinging to the glass. My coffee tasted like, well like coffee again, instead of the brown liquid that???s been sitting on the warming coil of a truck stop diner for the last week.

There are some store-bought cleaning products that will also strip the oils from your pot, but since most come in a bright blue liquid full of ingredients I can???t pronounce, I try to avoid them. Especially since a little vinegar does the trick.

I still remember the warm, sharp spiciness fondly, but really haven???t climbed on the Chai bandwagon. While perusing the candy aisle while grocery shopping (a childhood habit I just can???t seem to break), I was intrigued by Dagoba???s Milk Chocolate Chai bar. The label describes, ???Rustic grown organic milk chocolate infused with crystallized ginger and chai essence.???

Wondering what in the world ???Chai essence??? was, I visited Dagoba???s website and found the ingredient list: crystallized ginger, ginger oil, cinnamon oil, clove oil, anise oil, cardamom oil, anise oil, black pepper oil. Sounds interesting enough, but does black pepper oil really belong in a chocolate bar? I???d soon find out.

As I unwrapped the bar, I was met with the pungent, warm smells of ginger and anise. With a 37% cacao content, the chocolate scent was rather muffled. I broke off a section and put it in my mouth. The crystallized ginger is evident as soon as you bite into it, you can feel the crunchy crystals. The chai spices are tasty, warm but with a kick (must be the black pepper oil). But, the chocolate flavor is rather overpowered by the spices. It???s all chai, and very little cacao.

If you are a tea lover looking for a new way to enjoy chai, this would be a wonderful option. But, if you are hoping for a new chocolate treat, move on to something else.

Financial analysts intimated that Starbucks???s expansion in more rural markets reaches consumers more likely to cut out small luxuries when the money gets tight. Also, the number of breakfast coffee drinkers is on a downward trend from 48.7 % in 1990 to 37.7 in 2005. Starbucks spokespeople have blamed the lag in sales on longer lines due to the ???unexpectedly heavy demand for cold, sweet Frappuccinos in the morning spurred by heat waves across the country. Frappuccinos take longer to prepare because they are mixed in a blender, topped with whipped cream and??? toppings.??? The reported lagging sales resulted in an investor sell-off, and stock prices fell. While Starbucks still does better, growth-wise, than most other established restaurants, one has to wonder if the company???s seeming invincibility will last much longer.

Starbucks has also announced plans to open at least 2,000 new stores before the end of the fiscal year, September 30. The up and coming markets for Starbucks? India, Russia, perhaps Brazil. The company states that their coffee drinks are an affordable luxury, and despite troubled economic times, they expect to keep growing.

-The Wall Street Journal, Vol. CCXLVIII, No. 29
August 4, 2006 ???Are Frappuccino Woes or Frugality to Blame for Starbucks???s Stumble???? Author: Janet Adamy

I used to work for a large non-profit in downtown Oakland. It was there I discovered Aroma. I???m usually a home-brew kind of girl, but happened to run out of beans one fateful day. I stumbled to work, sat down at my desk, and promptly dozed off. A coworker found me and whisked me off for a caffeine fix. Across the street we went. Aroma is a tiny caf?? and bakery located at 19th and Franklin in downtown Oakland. I first fell in love with their cookies during afternoon snack runs. But that day, I was in need of coffee. Ever the sweet tooth, I ordered my safety order: small mocha. Abraham, the owner, quickly set to work, and in a few minutes, I had a beautifully crafted mocha in my hands.

Well.

The chocolate was rich and creamy, and in no way overpowered the double-shot of espresso. It was piping hot, and delightful to the last bit. No grainy residue left at the bottom of the cup (which might have been a testament to how quickly I drank it, rather than the all around smoothness.)

I was hooked. I eventually started testing out their other delicacies, lattes: fabulous. But what became my standard order was a large cup of their house blend with a splash of milk and a hunk of brown sugar. Smooth, bold, a little lighter blend than I was used to, but so flavorful I tried to buy a pound of the stuff to make at home, but Abraham just smiled indulgently and shook his head. Not willing to give up the secrets.

As good as the coffee is, the service is even better. Abraham remembers you within two visits, and knows your order even sooner. Sam is the deli guy, and do yourself a favor: chicken-apple-sausage and cheese stuffed croissant. It quite simply does not get better than that sandwich with a cup of the house blend.