Wednesday, July 23, 2003


more on that ico & coffee purity thing. . .

yesterday (and long before, here too) i mentioned that i believe the u.s.a. should rejoin the i.c.o. in an effort to help stabilize the coffee market, as well as improve the quality of coffee in this country.

part of rejoining the i.c.o. means that the u.s.a. would have to tighten the rules governing what grades of coffee can be imported into this country.

since this topic has come alive again on alt.coffee, the ever-fabulous mike ferguson of the scaa has sent me a largish pic of 2 pots of coffee. on the right is the horrendous so-called "grade 8," right now the lowest level of stuff importable.

nice happy high-quality green coffee beans are a lovely light silvery-sagey green. if you look at the right pot, you'll see many -- even mostly perhaps -- nasty beans.

those blackened, weird ferment-y brown, yellow-y and insect-chewed beans are not what quality coffee should look like. this yucky stuff is known in the coffee trade as defects.

you are looking at trash coffee. it shouldn't even be allowed to be called coffee, much more less used in making stuff to drink, although this not-quality coffee is often used for instant international house of hazelnut delight or whatever. . .after mega-heavy processing and lots of added flavors, perfumes, whiteners, other weird stuff that real coffee doesn't need.

in the left pot, you see some better beans that still have questionable characters mixed in. this is the level of coffee that meets the proposed i.c.o. standard.

and this should be the minimum that americans drink. (actually, looking at it closely, maybe we should mandate even better than that. . .)

coffee lovers, you may not think you care about coffee standards. it seems really arcane. take another look at that right-hand pot. do you really wanna drink that stuff?

but without knowing you probably have; maybe even today. . .maybe when someone pawned off a cup of brand x instant on ya. . .i don't think they even dare serve that kinda junk in prison!

here at bccy we are lovers of the so-called specialty coffee, coffee that has basically zero, zip, nada, 0 defects. this is the delicious premium coffee, often labelled by its country of origin, that most people nowadays think of as coffee.

you know, the stuff you roast at home, buy from your local independent coffeehouse/roaster, or pick up at starbucks or peets.

that grade 8 stuff should be called coffee by-products. at best. i mean, look at it! in the coffee trade it is often called triage coffee.

wouldn't you like to know whether you are getting good coffee or grade 8 when you're making a purchase? don't you think you the consumer has a right to know? i sure do!

and this in fact is what our friends at the scaa hope will happen, that the u.s.a. will adopt these new standards, force manufacturers to label that stuff as coffee by-products, and alert consumers as to what's really in the can or jar.

then we can re-join the i.c.o., help stabilize the world coffee market, aid our friends the coffee farmers, and enjoy higher-quality coffee even at the lowest end of the coffee spectrum!

isn't this all good? boy howdy, yes it is! that's what so cool about the grounds for action website mentioned yesterday. you can go there to send your little email demanding better coffee for us all. . .

posted by fortune | 6:31 PM | top | link to this | email this: | | | 0 comments