Open City DC

Adhering to higher coffee purchasing standards is important to us. We want the coffee that we buy to promote economically and environmentally sustainable farms. It's important that we as retailers and consumers demand coffee that is grown and sold responsibly, however, sustainability is a lot more complicated than trusting in a phrase or certification sticker.

Our roaster, Counter Culture Coffee, has focused on establishing relationships between farmers and roaster, which cut out middle men and allow farmers to get paid more. They also help educate farmers on green farming and to grow better coffee that will demand a higher premium in the future. Some (not all) of our coffees are certified Direct Trade and Fair Trade, but all EXCEED “fair trade” standards.

Both of our decaf coffees are 100% certified organic and not chemically decaffeinated. The majority (not all) of the beans in our house and espresso blends are organic, an exception being a very special Rwandan coffee that has helped to redevelop a community decimated by war.

Economic and environmental sustainability are complicated issues and the best way to address them is to buy coffee from people who are knowledgeable and concerned about these issues rather than putting your conscious in the hands of a certification sticker. We at Open City, Tryst and The Diner have developed a relationship with our roaster because they are committed to sustainability and the lives of the people who grow our coffee. We hope that you will develop a relationship with us, knowing that you’re consuming coffee that has been conscientiously sourced.

The Bigger Issues:
ECONOMY:
Coffee is the primary export in many regions and drastically impacts the environment and economies in the countries where it’s grown. Nearly sixty billion dollars worth of coffee is traded annually but there are many poor farmers who receive little of the retail price by the time it trickles down to them. Concerns regarding this impact have motivated many projects and forms of certification that are difficult for even those of us in the industry to keep up with and sort out.

Fair Trade certification establishes a base price that is paid to small farm producers who are part of a larger co-op. Fair Trade certification kept many farmers afloat when commodities prices bottomed out in the 80s and early 90s but Fair Trade prices have not gone up much in the past 15 years. Fair Trade has done well to draw attention to the economic situation of farmers but not all farmers can or are willing to pay for certification.

Also, understand that responsible coffee is expensive. Most coffee is mind-bogglingly cheap considering that a pound of coffee takes a lot of environmental input and labor to produce. Inexpensive coffee pretty much insures that farmers at the bottom of the pay chain aren’t making much. The price difference between a great coffee and a wine doesn’t have to do entirely with the products themselves but rather that one is grown by people who live in places like Napa or the Rhone Valley, and one is grown by people in places like Papua New Guinea’s Waghi Valley. Since coffee is often the only legal export of value in many underdeveloped countries, cheap coffee perpetuates the economic dynamics of colonial exploitation.

Fair trade is a general term which describes the movement towards increased equity and fairness among the supply chain of a variety of products, including coffee. In coffee, the most widely used fair trade standard is created and maintained by the Fairtrade Labeling Organization, and their licensee in the United States, Transfair USA. Their "Fair Trade Certified" (FTC) seal is the most commonly seen fair trade certification in the market, and Counter Culture has been a proud licensee of Transfair since 2001. However, this seal is not available to all farmers: since the FLO standard includes only coffee producers who are organized into certain kinds of co-ops, independent farmers are excluded from the FTC system. Since maintaining direct relationships with independent farmers is one of Counter Culture's core principles of fairness and sustainability, they sought a fair trade standard that was able to include these farms, many of which are shining examples of sustainable, responsible coffee farming.

Organic coffee is also a complicated issue. We support organic farming and many of our coffees are certified organic. Again, not all organic coffee is going to be labeled such. Many farmers who can’t afford pesticides can’t afford certification either. It’s important to understand that organic farming impacts where the coffee is grown and not the consumer. Any chemical that might make its way into a bean is burned away in the roasting process.

The disposal of pulped organic coffee material near streams and watersheds is potentially a more important environmental issue than organic farming but there's not a certification sticker to make us feel better about that. Shade Grown coffee is also really important environmentally because it allows coffee to be grown alongside other important vegetation. It improves biodiversity, soil quality, water runoff, and often necessitates organic farming since no one wants to fertilize and spray an entire forest. It also slows the maturation of the fruit, improving the coffee.

Every farmer has to make a decision between the benefits of organic farming on their environment and family versus the negative impact on yield, which can reduce their crop by as much as half. Farmers don’t have the liberty to separate the issues of organic and economic sustainability and the bottom line is, if we want to continue to drink organic coffee we’re going to need to pay more for it.