Comments on: Made In The Shade

By: Kate St. John

Kate St. John — Sat, 20 Oct 2012 11:08:11 +0000

Cornell Lab of Ornithology has a coffee guide here: http://bit.ly/WOZ8vy

By: Kathy Miller

Kathy Miller — Sat, 18 Aug 2012 20:00:39 +0000

We sell Equal Exchange coffee and chocolate at our church – The Unitarian Universalist Church of the North Hills-in Franklin Park. It is fair trade coffee and 90% of it is organic. Not all of it is shade grown as they do help out the farmers in areas that have already been deforested. See the link below. Great topic, thanks, Kate.

http://www.equalexchange.coop/is-your-coffee-shade-grown

By: jny

jny — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 22:25:08 +0000

I started buying shade-grown coffee about 15 years ago at Hawk Mountain whenever I was there. They were selling an Audubon branded roast that some proceeds also went to the AUdubon Society, as well as the mark-up that Hawk Mountain made (we’re members, so we would buy stuff there on purpose).

They don’t seem to have it on the Hawk Mountain online store, but they currently are selling Birds & Beans branded coffees.

http://www.birdsandbeans.com/index.html

For local “grab-n-Go” Caribou has all Rainforest Alliance brews (Their goal was to be at 100% by the end of 2011, I think they made it) and if you read the package, it will give you some idea of where the coffee is coming from.

For example, one of their seasonal coffees is La Minita Peaberry. If you read about the estate, you can get and idea of what kind of trees are grown with the coffee (example here: http://www.wilsonscoffee.com/carticles/costarica.html)

According to the info here:

http://www.coffeehabitat.com/2006/02/what_is_shade_g/

…that’s pretty much the minimum for “shade-grown (one layer of trees, and they even cut them back!). So for bird/bio-diversity…not so much.

By: Rob Protz

Rob Protz — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 21:42:21 +0000

Scott Shalaway has discussed and written about this topic extensively. He has a relationship with Golden Valley Farms – see
http://www.goldenvalleyfarms.com/coffee101/birdfriendlycoffees.asp
which is the only coffee roaster that produces 100% shade-grown coffee. All the others which are shade-grown are not 100%, and they are allowed to do this.

Scott even has a specialty coffee with his name on it with Golden Valley Farms.
http://secure.goldenvalleyfarms.com/home.php?cat=38

This from a non-coffee drinker!

By: kc

kc — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 20:27:19 +0000

I don’t drink a ton of coffee, but when I do indulge I drink “bird-freindly.” I’ve done a decent amount of research. What I found out is that the Smithsonian certification is the most rigorous, but some small companies cannot spend the money to obtain and maintain the certification as they are struggling farmers of modest means. Hence, I try to research the shade-grown coffee I come across available for retail sale in my local stores and then I go with my gut based on the available information.

By: Kate St. John

Kate St. John — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 14:08:26 +0000

Actually the growers bred full sun coffee to get higher yields, but full sun coffee needs pesticides to thrive & the plants don’t live as long. The open farmland method is not good for the soil either.
Yes, I/we should drink less coffee.
It’s one of my vices.

By: Bill Parker

Bill Parker — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 13:28:20 +0000

In order to get the same yield of coffee beans, wouldn’t you need to clear more intact tropical forest to create the agroforest? Perhaps that could reduce the habitat even more. Maybe we should just drink less coffee to reduce the market for the beans.