One of the things I am frequently asked about is fair-trade coffee. Over that last year, there has been a backlash amongst some of the top cafes around North America in regards to fair trade coffee. Why are the people selling the product bucking a system that touts giving farmers a fair living wage for the product that they toil over? They have other options – options that cost more.
The Cup of Excellence is a unique program, which allows bidding on lots of coffee – and not in the same manner that coffee is traded on the commodities market – where it sells in the neighbourhood of $1 per pound. Brazil, Colombia, Honduras, Nicaragua, Guatemala, El Salvador, and Bolivia are all member countries of the Cup of Excellence Program. What that means is once per year (or twice for Colombia, as they can normally get a second harvest) there will be an online auction. Prior to the auction, the members of the program (roasters who pay membership dues) will be mailed samples of the coffee.
These samples are green beans – to be roasted in a sample roaster – a small tabletop sized roaster used for testing and experimenting different roasts. We aren’t talking dark roasts either. Most of these premium coffees will never know a dark roast – they are too expensive to just char. You can definitely find a cheaper coffee for a dark roast – it’s essentially the same idea as sashimi vs. canned tuna – the higher the grade, the less processing necessary. Once the roasters have their samples roasted, they will “cup” them. Cupping is essentially a tasting ceremony. There are standard sized glasses, a set weight of coffee to go in them, and then they are filled with water just off a boil, a timer is set, and they brew for a set period of time. It’s very structured. At the end of the time alottted, the samples are “cracked” – the bloom of coffee grounds on the top of the cup is broken with a spoon. This is the time where you get the greatest aromas from the coffee – the ultimate freshness. The fact that you can have coffees which have just cooled from the roast is one of the most alluring things about drip coffee for me. If you were to try that with espresso, you’d be wasting your money. The coffee needs time to off-gas after it is roasted. This is when the gas contained within the beans escapes from the bean, and the coffee stabilizes. The grounds are scraped from the top of the coffee and discarded. Then everyone tasting the coffee travels around the table with a spoon in hand, dipping into the samples, and tasting them.
The first cupping is always a little weird to see adults walking around a table: slurping and spitting into a cup. Beside each cup of brewed coffee is a sample of the beans (so it and any defects it may have can be examined). Cuppings should be conducted blind, so each coffee is treated for what it is, free of bias from the history of the grower or region. At this point, the favorites are picked, and the actual sample is revealed, notes are made, and we wait as the auction date approaches.
When the auction goes live, people from all over the world sit at their computers, bidding on their favorite lots. Sometimes the auctions are quick, ending after only a couple of hours. Other times they go on like marathons. If I remember correctly, the longest one this year was in the neighbourhood of 20 hours. The bidding on each lot ends only when there has been 3 minutes between bids. Auction days are intense, to be glued to the computer, and on the phone constantly, in contact with any bidding partners (companies often form alliances with others to increase their buying clout. – and split the coffee that they win. The #1 Brazil which 49th Parallel bought was purchased between them and Michel’s – a company from Australia. They took 9 bags, we took 3. At $49.75 per pound in a 60 kilo bag – it definitely makes sense when you think that each bag of that coffee cost around $6500 – a lot of money to have wrapped up in a specialty product, especially if you have the entire lot.
So why is there a backlash towards “fair trade” coffees? The fair trade programs pay farmers a set price, regardless of the quality of the product, and many of the top coffee roasters in North America are beginning to lean to paying a premium dollar for a premium product. I checked the auction results online and searched the prices of the lowest scoring coffee from each country’s most recent auction: $3, $2.30, $2.55, $1.50, $3.20, $5.25, $3.05 (aberrations do occur, sometimes a higher scoring coffee actually sells for less)
Fair trade programs establish a minimum price for growers, dependent upon region and type of coffee. Buyers then pay a $.05 per pound premium for fair-trade certification, and $0.15 per pound for a certified organic certification (if applicable). The “fair trade” programs pay in the neighbourhood of $1.26 per pound, regardless of quality. They have their heart in the right place (the same place that attracts the hearts and brains of the top roasters who pay their great producers to keep on producing a great product). It was certainly an early step in a great direction, a direction that most of the top cafes in North America support – paying a fair wage for a quality product. I think things are getting better for the farmers. By no means are they great, but it’s comforting to know that that the Brazil #1, at least, bought computers for the farmer’s kids. All of them.
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