Coffee

A 2008 glance at Kona coffee retail prices shows options from $7 to 45 per pound. Contrary to the headline this actually sounds like a rather wide range where every market segment should be able to get their respective luxury-gourmet-coffee experience.

Yet if one subtracts all the products coat-tailing on the Kona name (e.g. ‘Kona Blend, ‘Kona Style’, ‘Kona Roast’) the range is getting much narrower. Nothing below $ 19.99 per pound, which appears somewhat genuine is to be found. If any other specifics like ‘Organic’ or ‘Extra Fancy’ are being added the prices are going quickly towards the $30 mark and above. Yet in supermarkets one can get for five bucks a wide variety of ordinary coffees and sale signs galore in the respective aisles. So who is getting rich here? And where is the discount stuff?

Let’s take a closer look of what Kona coffee actually is. The fabled Kona coffee belt stretches for 20 miles with only 2 miles width through the districts of North and South Kona on the Big Island of Hawaii, USA. Ideal coffee growing conditions produce a very unique, highly aromatic, mellow, yet limited annual crop of the fabled ‘kona typica’ beans. Mostly small family farms line the two roads winding along the fertile slopes of the active volcanoes Hualalai and Mauna Kea. The verdant green scenery with the blue hues of the Pacific below is occasionally interrupted by the signs of coffee processors trying to entice the local farmers to sell them their freshly picked coffee cherries: ‘$1.60 CASH!’ or ‘WEEKLY: $1.55′ or ‘BUYING CHERRY-Always Highest Prices!’. (1 lb roasted coffee needs a 7.4 lbs of coffee cherry). Also, once the harvest comes to an end, ‘BUYING PARCHMENT’ banners will flap in the gentle ocean breeze. What’s called ‘parchment’ is the now pulped and dried coffee, still in a thin membrane covering the green bean, which will fetch a price in the range of $7.50 – $8.50 per pound.

And that’s the key to understanding the 100% Kona coffee’s economics: Every local Kona coffee farmer has the chance to sell their crop! No additional work as pulping, drying, storing, milling, sorting, roasting, packaging, labeling, marketing goes into it. Many choose to do so, as labor costs in Hawaii are at a premium and housing for low wage workers is nearly impossible to find on the island. The actual Kona Coffee Belt land is too steep and rocky to navigate with machinery and hard human labor is needed to plant, grow and harvest.

Most farm parcels are only of 3 – 5 acres average size and are capable of producing 20 – 40,000 pound of coffee cherry. Once picking costs are subtracted (50 cent per pound) the annual monies earned can be considered only an additional income. So farmers have their unpaid families and friends pitching in during picking season and then the numbers look somewhat better. Yet so far no one got rich farming Kona coffee – it still is a labor of passion similar to an old fashioned vintners’ backbreaking daily chores. And passion it is when a few of these traditional family farmers in the age of the internet are able to bring their product direct to the customers: No middlemen, no processors, no pooling of various farms, no store chains or roasters between the consumer and them. Even that for the farmers to process, package, ship, advertise, et al raises will their profits only marginal, it guarantees them independence. It’s added value for both parties, as customers know exactly where the beans come from and the farmer is able to care and quality-control the coffee from seed to cup.

The main factors driving the price of genuine Kona coffee are therefore: Kona as a limited growing region for a superb tasting product requiring intense hand labor, coupled with a steadfast national and international consumer demand that guarantees virtually no surpluses or discounted volumes of Kona coffee to be moved.

But with many folks never having experienced what a real handcrafted Kona coffee tastes like, the profit margin between the ‘commodity’ coffees and the rare 100% Kona coffee is too tempting for many roasters. The growing market of single origin, single estate coffees – as a Kona coffee should be labeled – is flooded with impostor coffee brands. So please do your research and don’t always believe what’s written on the bag when buying Kona coffee. Especially when the deal sounds too good to be true or it tastes like generic coffee, it is most likely that those beans haven’t seen Hawaii at all.

See many pictures and read more of how a small farm produces delicious, affordable 100% Kona coffee: http://www.bluehorsekona.com/ (low end pricing)

Life seen through the eyes of a little Hawaiian girl growing up on a genuine small coffee farm in Kona: http://www.athenaofhawaii.com/ (moderate pricing; celebrity clientele; presented in handcrafted wooden gift boxes and unique tapa cloth pouches)

Author: Joaquin Delanuit
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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Many people find that a one cup coffee maker meets all of their coffee urges in a quick and reliable manner. One cup coffee makers generally give high quality coffee in a timely enough manner for each cup to be served fresh. But some households drink six or seven cups of coffee each morning, making this machine an arduous experience at best. There are many other such things to be considered before purchasing a one cup coffee machine.

Advantages:

One of the values of having your own one cup coffee maker is that you can save time each day. If you get this coffee machine with a timer function, you can even have your coffee waiting for you each day when you get up. Nothing can quite compare to waking up to the soothing and brightening aroma of well-brewed coffee. You do not have to do any labor after you get up to get your coffee. Just put the ingredients in the day before and when you wake up, you can grab your coffee and have it before breakfast or grab your coffee and have it in the car on those days when you need an early start to work.

One of the reasons many people choose a single cup coffee maker over a big deluxe coffee maker is that they simply do not need more coffee. Besides, most people have a limited amount of counter space in the kitchen for appliances. Further, with this coffee maker, you do not have left over coffee to deal with afterwards. And it is usually much easier to clean to machine afterwards. Making your coffee each morning can consist of only 2-3 minutes of work the day before.

Disadvantages:

Of course, if you need a lot more than one cup of coffee before you can go off to work or if you have other morning coffee lovers in the household, a single cup coffee machine just won’t do what you want it to do. Imagine trying to make eight cups of coffee one cup at a time each day and you can see how time and labor consuming this could be.

One cup coffee makers can usually only make old-fashioned coffee. They won’t usually brew specialty coffee beans from the store for you nor do they have a button each for espresso, cappuccino, and latte. You will need a specialty coffee maker for these types of special drink needs. There are coffee makers that do everything from the whole brewing process for you to making eight different coffee-based drinks! So you ought to be able to find whatever other kind of coffee maker you need, if indeed you need anything other than the one cup coffee machine.

Are you looking for the Best Coffee Maker? Are you confused with what to look for? Read this article to find out more about choosing a coffee maker that is right for you: http://EzineArticles.com/?id=945210

Alice Morgan is an coffee lover and currently runs a website to provide more information on different coffee makers around the world at http://www.bestcoffeemakers.org

Author: Alice Morgan
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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Dear Coffee Drinker,

“Fair Trade” is a certification that is given primarily to a company that can prove, together with a specific coffee farm, that fair prices are being given to the independent farm. These are certifications that are primarily being marketed in the USA by a firm in California. For example, StarBucks may promote a certain type of coffee that is being sold as Fair Trade coffee. Not all their coffee can be sold as such because this only applies to a very few farms that hold these certifications together with the buyer. This needs to be proven to the agencies in the United States that govern this certification. Even though StarBucks sells one type of coffee that is certified Fair Trade this does not mean that all their coffee is certified. This would be an impossible task. The biggest problem is most US companies only pay the farmer or roaster Fair Trade and then they have to trust that the roaster is passing this extra money to the laborers. So the farmer gets a fair price but the laborers, many times children work for pennies a day.AND FAIR TRADE – However does not ensure that children are not used to pick coffee or that the children are given a fair price. Neither does it ensure that the migrate farm laborers are paid fair prices. Fair Trade has been great in elevating people’s awareness of the coffee industry and has ensured that the coffee farmer and or roaster is getting a fair price and to a lesser extend some farmers but it has not always helped the people actually picking the coffee and completing the other coffee labor. Worse it has allowed the bigger farmers to make more money buying up the smaller farmers and making more money while the labor pool suffers. The going rate for labor has not increased in five years while Fair Trade Coffee prices have doubled. So whats fair about the owner making more while the laborers still suffer.

Worse Fair Trade has become so popular that it elevated many “bad or poor” coffees into popoluar brands – not because they taste good but because they have become Fair Trade – as that has any correlation to taste. Sadlty Fair Trade only means the large land owner gets more money.

Costa Rica on the other hand has a different system than most coffee producing countries. The coffee you purchased is from one of the best regions of coffee in the world, known as Tarrazu Costa Rica. There is a cooperative in Tarrazu known as CoopeTarrazu. StarBucks is a large buyer of CoopeTarrazu’s coffee. CoopeTarrazu owns 25% of our company. CoopeTarrazu in turn is owned by approximately 1500 small to medium sized independent farms. The function of CoopeTarrazu is to get the best price for the coffees that these 1500 plus farms turn into this processing plant as a group. The profits are then divided and paid to each farmer based on his percentage interest or the amount of product supplied to CoopeTarrazu by him. The entire process is governed by the Government of Costa Rica. The overseeing body is known as ICAFE. It regulates all coffee that is processed and exported from Costa Rica. ICAFE’s watchful eye makes sure that the independent farms are receiving fair market prices for the coffee they turn into CoopeTarrazu. Not only does Costa Rica have some of the best coffee in the world it also is some of the most expensive coffee in the world. The reason for this is directly linked to ICAFE’s involvement in the coffee industry within Costa Rica. It makes sure that the farmers are receiving fair prices for their coffee. Our plant is registered with ICAFE for this reason. This proves that we are part of the system that makes sure our coffee is truly Fair Trade coffee even though we are not certified by the USA body known as Fair Trade. We are also owned by 3 other cooperatives in Costa Rica – CoopeVictoria, CoopePalmares, and CoopeSabalito. In other words we work with more than 8000 small farmers. Each cooperative has a significant % share in our roasting plant and these are the sources from which we draw upon for our raw product, our green bean.

There are some other functions of ICAFE, which works very closely with the Minister of Health, the Minister of Children, and the Minister of Labor. For example, ICAFE also makes sure that the Indians that come in from the jungles of Panama and Nicaragua to pick coffee during the harvest season are paid fair wages, given health insurance, and proper housing accommodations during the harvest season. They also work closely to make sure there is no exploitation of children and adult workers. Costa Rica is very much into protecting the less fortunate and overseeing their rights. This is another reason why we are proud members of ICAFE.

So if you want to make a statement and buy a coffee really making a difference – buy a Costa Rica coffee.

Sincerely,

George Boake Moore
CEO
Mission Grounds
http://www.missiongrounds.com

Author: Boake Moore
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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