Coffee
During the pandemic and recommendations to stay at home more, M and I have developed a deeper interest in coffee. There is really so much to explore on different brewing techniques and different flavours from different continents but coffee also comes with a great consumer responsibility.
4 ways to support a more responsible and tastier coffee experience are:
Buy sustainable and traceable coffee from coffee roasters that pay fair wages to their employees. Generally speaking, if the coffee you buy is mass produced and sold in big quantities it is unfortunately likely that the workers aren’t paid fairly. However, small scale coffee production is not automatically better.
Check the date when your coffee is roasted. Coffee tastes best up to six weeks after roasting.
If you grind your own coffee beans make sure to have clean equipment.
If your coffee tastes acidosis- grind finer. If your coffee tastes bitter- grind coarser.
A problem with conventional coffee is that most coffee bean farmers can’t cover their basic costs due to poor wages. This has partly to do with the fact that the price of coffee beans is set by the New York Mercantile Exchange and has much to do with the demand for coffee. However, if the coffee is direct trade this means that the price of the beans are based on the farmers actual cost of producing the beans. Another aspect of coffee farming is that many of the countries where coffee is grown face problems with violence, corruption, drugs and increasing economic gaps. So, where you as a consumer choose to buy your coffee can make a huge difference.
The information is based by the report from Naturskyddsföreningen and the book Manifest för bättre kaffe by Joanna Alm