Is Our Coffee Organic?
We get asked this question a lot, and today I wanted to take some time to answer it, as it’s a little more complex than it seems.
First of all, not all of our coffee is CERTIFIED Organic. Why? Well, for a lot of reasons.
First, the farmer growing the coffee, even if adhering to organic growing practices, would have to pay a lot of money to have the farm certified as an Organic farm. Most farmers simply can’t or won’t do this. They know their coffee is grown organically (meaning no chemicals, pesticides, etc), and they are uncertain whether the Organic certification may pay off for them or not. So why invest the extra money?
Moreover, in today’s market, I’ve experienced that Organic certified coffees are sometimes of lower quality than the ones that aren’t. In fact, I’ve tasted a lot of BAD Organic certified coffee. Sometimes it really is just a marketing scheme to get bad (cheap) coffee on a seemingly equal footing with high-grade, specialty coffee. This has become increasingly apparent to me as a green coffee buyer, where you can see the huge quality and price differences between coffees. For example, sometimes we are buying coffees that are 3x more expensive than an “Organic” coffee—and, given that we receive FULL bios on all coffee we purchase, we can do due diligence to make sure these coffees are really of the caliber that they say they are.
That said, we REALLY BELIEVE in organically grown coffee (and food, for that matter). So, we handle the purchasing/handling of our coffee in careful ways. Here are a few examples:
We buy from our trusted importer that ONLY buys organically grown coffee. Again, not all of it will be Organic certified; some will. Currently, about half of our coffee is certified Organic at the source. And these are fantastic coffees.
Within that, we try to buy coffee that is bio-diverse and/or shade-grown. This ensures that the coffee grows in the healthiest, most natural environments possible. Healthy soil is a crucial part of good coffee.
We ourselves do not use any chemicals as cleaners on our coffee equipment or counters. We only use natural cleaning products.
So, why can’t we put “organic” on our bags? For a lot of the same reasons. First of all, we haven’t paid the (large) amount of money to have someone come in and say we are meeting the requirements to be Organic Certified. What are those requirements? Basically, all the things we are currently doing—making sure cross-contamination doesn’t happen between “Organic Certified” coffee and “Non-Organic Certified Coffee,” not using chemicals as cleaners, adhering to strict lot tracing, etc. We are already doing this. So, like the farmers, it really comes down to paying the money for us. Plus, legally, you CANNOT say you carry Organic coffee on a bag if it isn’t certified. A lot of people (shockingly) break this rule.
And, should we ever go through the extra effort (read “spend money”) to be certified as an Organic roaster someday, I don’t think that will be a bad thing. But, rest assured, we are doing everything we currently can to purchase and roast safe, pesticide and chemical free coffee.
And, if you’re into Decaf, ours is Swiss Water Processed, meaning no chemicals are used to decaffeinate. It’s really tasty!
Hope this helps a little. Please comment below with any questions! We’d love to hear from you.
Cheers,
Casey (the roaster)