Latest Poll
Loading ...TX-Coffee Flickr Group
A Feature on Fair Trade in Ethiopia
Fair trade coffee in Ethiopia?
By Louise Williams
11-01-2008
Fair trade claims to guarantee a better deal for third world producers. But are producers really getting such a good deal? Louise Williams has been to southern Ethiopia to find out what benefits fair trade is bringing coffee producers. more…
There is an accompanying sound clip that gives some insight from our friends at Stumptown Coffee in Portland.
Indirectly
Hi Aaron. Welcome back from Guatemala. i know. i’m sorry i’ve been a flake since my return from guatemala and my visit with edwin at his family’s finca vista hermosa. in my defense, i haven’t been doing much blogging on any of my sites since returning. maybe that’s a sign of increased business keeping me away from the monitor. or maybe i’m just lazy.
at any rate, i wanted to toss a topic into the texas realm that are on my plate of late. it’s a little “discussion” going on over at coffeed over this so called phenomenon of “Direct Trade.” if you’re not familiar with the basic arguments of it, swing over here first for a primer. now, don’t get me wrong, i am a huge proponent of the concept of purchasing coffee as close to the source as possible, as i clearly stated in my posts in the first linked discussion. but i have a couple of issues that stick a bit in my craw. (i can use that term in a texas blogpost, right?)
first is the notion of trademarking the term “direct trade” as has been done by a certain specialty coffee roaster a bit north of us all here in texas. what’s up with that? does anyone hope to profit from that name? or if not, does anyone believe that by trademarking it the name will somehow help coffee producers in any way, shape or form? i don’t get the point of trademarking a name just to be the ones with the rights to it if there is really no inherent benefit to it from a cup quality standpoint. maybe it’s just money.
second, there’s the idea of transparency that comes hand in glove with this phenomenon. while some of the companies that are doing a lot of direct work with coffee farmers are doing phenomenal work in the area of giving out tons of great stories and information that is both romantic and educational, there are, as i have tried to point out in my coffeed posts, some gaps in the record, if you will that need more clarification than the leading d.t. proponents seem willing to share with the general buying public. the strategy seems to be one of writing up so much information that some of the key pieces that should be baldly clear get–in my opinion–conspicuously lost in the shuffle.
here’s the great example. i began to inquire about a segment of d.t. that needs some clarification because i couldn’t find any real information perusing the websites of two (and the other, here) of the industry’s stalwarts in the d.t. area. (for the record, both are organizations i respect greatly.) the subject has to do with marketing and creating names for blends of coffees a roaster/retailer carries. the topic first came up while i was in guatemala at the dinner table, where a couple was in an animated discussion with jaime about what they were calling a “mark of origin.” i sat down with my plate and started to listen to these groups discuss how one of these companies above had created a fictitious name for a coffee they were selling that was actually a blend of many different coffees from around a particular country. no big deal, right? well, the issue was that the marketing behind the coffee (they had a t-shirt made up for it and lots of webinfo) made it appear, at least to the people at the table, that the company was marketing a coffee from what looked like a single farm, or at the very least, from a single co-op. there was nothing anywhere on the packaging and labeling of the coffee that indicated that this bag was indeed comprised of coffees from over three dozen farms scattered across a country the size of, well, colombia. we had some long discussions about it that evening; voices were raised on both sides about a company’s right to do what they please with their products; about deceptive marketing practices; about how it’s cool to perhaps not label the bags as a blend for space’s sake but that why in the ocean of information that can be put on the website was the fact that this was a blend not mentioned online and how in fact the word “blend” didn’t even appear anywhere in the info pages for this coffee. and so forth.
so, being ever the instigator i am, i decided to bring it up on coffeed. why do we find very little if any indication that this coffee is actually a blend? what is the idea behind a fictitiously fabricated name for a blend of coffees known as a “mark of origin” (which the two companies above prefer to call “I-marks” and “Roaster’s Marks,” respectively)? why create a fake name? why not say it’s a blend? how does this square with the idea of transparency? aren’t we risking obfuscating instead of educating the masses? is it really that hard to identify these coffees differently that honestly captures what is happening but that is still done in a marketable way? and what of the farmers who toiled hard on these coffees (and were,to be sure, compensated well for their labors), only to have them slip behind the anonymity of a false name created by the roaster just to sell more coffee? didn’t that fly in the face of the whole direct trade ethos?
these were questions i floated to the forum and got many lengthy and educational responses in return about the history of the roaster’s mark, the greatness of all the web information about how these companies went to this country to get coffee, how so many other names we label our coffees are also not precise (as though this were some justification), why it’s not evil and the like. what i didn’t get was a direct answer on why it was necessary to create a fake name when we’re trying to be precise and direct. why is a fake name, not an imprecise or outdated name, mind you, but a fake, fabricated name, created by a wealthy north american company to sell more coffee from a not wealthy group of latin american farmers, is necessary and beneficial to any of the farmers under whose banner they reside.
part of the response was that there is some recognition for the farmers who provide exceptional coffees to the group by getting “micro lot” status under the roaster’s mark. but i think from a theoretical perspective this is an even worse and insensitive offense to these hard working farmers, who are struggling to break the cycle of anonymity that keeps coffee prices low and ensures the greatest profits go to the retailers. to create a false name, let’s say it’s called, “Perro Grande,” under which you gather all these coffees, then decide to “honor” one of the best of the blend by giving that farmer “Perro Grande Especial” status is gratuitous at best and seems to me to smack of slapping a north american band-aid (the one where we think money solves everything) on a latin american problem (the one where they know that getting name recognition for themselves solves everything). the farmer’s name is not Perro Grande. his farm is not called Perro Grande, nor is his co-op, dry mill, coyote’s business, the exporter’s, the shipyard or anything at all. IT’S A FAKE NAME WITH NO CONNECTION TO THE PEOPLE OR THE COFFEE! it’s like being called the juan valdez of el salvador or something. he doesn’t even exist! so then what? the whole world buys this Perro Grande coffee and the farmers (including the micro lot farmer) gets what? recognition that will bring more buyers bidding with higher prices to his door? even if you mention his name and his farm’s name, he will now forever be associated with Perro Grande, which in turn will ever be associated with the company that created this marketing phenomenon, ensuring the farmers will ever be in the thrall of…the sole company that decided to trade directly with him in the first place.
so i’ve preached a seriously long missive that risks me sounding like i hate the direct trade concept and two of the companies i respect who practice it well. but i wanted to get that out there and off my chest and i’m hoping we can spark some discussion here on txcp.
i guess the only thing that really got me, after reviewing all the posts that have been posted so far is that no one really defending their practices bothered to acknowledge what i was saying about labeling it fairly as a blend or that they perhaps could have some culpability for creating confusion among the buying public. they mostly just wanted to share with everyone how much they were doing and not back down. but that’s okay. it’s been informative, at least.
LET ME ALSO SAY FOR THE RECORD that brown is not perfect and does not practice direct trade enough (yet) or have all its so called ducks in a row with regards to imprecise labeling designations…i still use size grades like “AA” and people groups (not actual geographic indicators) such as “Mandheling.” but i think it’s still worthy of discussion.
super long post. i’m done. discuss, texas.
-
TX-Coffee Partners
EspressoTrainer.com