coffee

The ethical and environmental dilemma of coffee

On a baking hot summer night a few years ago, some friends and I took a walk through our Somerville neighborhood. The day had been so warm that heat was still rising from the pavement even at 10 pm. A man from Central America was out tending his garden under the pale light of the street lamp. As my friends asked him about his plants, I thought I saw, out of the corner of my eye, a coffee bush. I had never seen one in real life, only in photographs, but I knew right away what it was.

"Is that coffee?" I asked incredulously. "Yes," he said with a grin, and then showed me that he grows it in a huge tub. He takes the coffee bush indoors during the winter and devotes an entire room of his house to caring for his tropical plants. He controls the heat and humidity and runs a sun lamp all winter long. He said he picks and roasts all his own coffee, just as he had before coming to the U.S.

For most of us, however, coffee is a tropical product imported from far away -- and therein lies a dilemma. Since October was Fair Trade month, I decided to check out some of the local Fair Trade businesses to see what their take is on importing tropical products.