Unique Coffee Roasters

The Pleasures and Pains of Coffee by Honore de Balzac
translated from the French by Robert Onopa

Coffee is a great power in my life; I have observed its effects on an epic scale. Coffee roasts your insides. Many people claim coffee inspires them, but, as everybody knows, coffee only makes boring people even more boring. Think about it: although more grocery stores in Paris are staying open until midnight, few writers are actually becoming more spiritual.
But as Brillat-Savarin has correctly observed, coffee sets the blood in motion and stimulates the muscles; it accelerates the digestive processes, chases away sleep, and gives us the capacity to engage a little longer in the exercise of our intellects. It is on this last point, in particular, that I want to add my personal experience to Brillat-Savarin’s observations.
Continue reading The Pleasures and Pains of Coffee by Honore de Balzac

guardian.co.uk home
Location
Fairtrade is accused of doing less for coffee farmers than Starbucks

Fairtrade’s requirements reflect ‘whims of western consumers’ rather than needs of those in developing world, says report

Fairtrade coffee Fairtrade is accused of failing coffee farmers in a new report.

Multinational companies such as Starbucks, Kraft and Nestlé do more for developing-world coffee farmers than the Fairtrade Foundation, according to a critical report from a free-market thinktank.

Describing Fairtrade as costly, opaque and substantially unproven, the 130-page report commissioned by the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) says: “Fairtrade requirements [on farmers] may well reflect the subjective views of western consumers and not the real needs of poor producers.”

The report specifically attacks the Fairtrade Foundation’s refusal to accept child labour and genetically modified technology, suggesting these strictures represent “the whims of western consumers” rather than the needs of farmers.

Continue reading Fairtrade is accused of doing less for coffee farmers than Starbucks