Coffee no Olympic medal hurdle

Olympic athletes have been stripped of medals and disqualified because they tested positive for drinking too much coffee or for taking an over-the-counter cold medicine. These innocuous infractions may be a thing of the past, according to the Associated Press.
The AP reports that World Anti-Doping Agency is poised to remove caffeine and pseudoephedrine, the active ingredient in Sudafed, from the list of banned substances.

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Bishop to speak of coffee ethics

Faith Matters

By Karen Vance
Enquirer contributor

What goes into your morning cup of coffee? And why does the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Cincinnati want to talk about it?

Millions of coffee-growing families in Latin America, most of them Catholic, are living in poverty. On Sunday, Bishop Alvaro Ramazini of San Marcos, Guatemala, will be in Cincinnati to talk about a coffee crisis that has dropped prices from $1.20 a pound to 50 cents a pound, and workers now making as little as $1 a day.

The program, "Java for Justice," at 7:30 p.m. at the Su Casa Hispanic Ministry Center, 115 W. Seymour Ave., Carthage, will discuss the impact on Latin America and how North Americans can help.

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A real Isabel emergency: I need my coffee!

The Virginian-Pilot
© September 20, 2003

At dawn, on the day after Isabel, many of us awoke in our powerless homes with an overpowering desire for only one thing: COFFEE.

Like wild animals acting on instinct, we struggled from our beds, stumbled from our weather-beaten homes, pulled fallen trees from our cars in feats of superhuman strength and set out on Quixotic searches for a cuppa joe.

Hold the cream.

As we gingerly picked our way through the arboreal Armageddon, past lifeless traffic lights and downed power lines, we opened our car windows and sniffed the earthy air, hoping for an invigorating whiff of freshly brewed Colombian. Or Breakfast Blend. Or even Folger's.

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Sales of fair trade coffee perk up

John Reinan, Star Tribune

Dave and Sonja Strutz get a nice buzz from their morning coffee, and it's not just from the caffeine. The St. Cloud couple drink only fair trade coffee, which they order in bulk from an East Coast supplier.

"The coffee itself is great, and the fact that we're helping to sustain some small farmers of Central America or Africa only adds to the flavor," Dave Strutz wrote in an e-mail. "Everyone wins, except the huge agribusinesses, which often provide less than subsistence living for these folks."

Fair trade coffee -- now available largely in food co-ops and specialty stores -- soon will be more accessible to the average grocery shopper.

Consumer-products giant Procter & Gamble announced this week that Millstone, its upscale coffee brand, will offer a fair trade selection.

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Caffeine May Ease the 'Ouch' of Exercise

Caffeine Jolt May Prevent Exercise-Induced Muscle Pain

By Jennifer Warner
Reviewed By Charlotte Grayson, MD
on Wednesday, September 17, 2003, WebMD Medical News

Your morning cup of coffee may do more than give you a jolt to get you going, it may also make your workout less painful. A new study suggests that caffeine reduces exercise-induced muscle pain. Researchers say pain-relieving effects of caffeine may actually help explain why caffeine has been shown to improve endurance.

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Seattle voters reject espresso tax

By Reed Stevenson

SEATTLE (Reuters) - Seattle voters have poured cold water on plans to tax espresso coffee to help poor children, deciding that a 10 cent
per cup tax was just too much to swallow.

With 97 percent of the vote counted, 68 percent of voters said no to the proposed tax on every cup of espresso or espresso-based coffee
sold in the hometown of Starbucks.

Espresso enthusiasts hailed the coffee tax rebuff. "As we said all along, this is the wrong way to fund child care," said Stephanie Bowman,
coordinator for Joined to Oppose the Latte Tax (JOLT). The tax money would have been used to fund day care for poor children.

"Everybody should be paying for these programs, not just coffee drinkers. Not with a gimmick like the Seattle latte tax," Bowman said.

Starbucks, Tully's Coffee Corp. and small coffee shops had argued that there were no grounds for a tax on espresso since it singled out
coffee for taxation and would hurt store sales.

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Coffee Summit Opens in Cartagena, Colombia

VOA News

Three heads of state, along with delegates from around the world, have opened a coffee summit in Cartagena, Colombia to discuss the slump in global prices.
Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, and Ricardo Maduro of Honduras are among those taking part in the summit of the International Coffee Organization. The five-day meeting opened Tuesday.

Reports say the leaders will be under pressure from the ICO to implement a plan launched one year ago to reduce exports of low-quality coffee beans that have flooded the markets and driven down prices.

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Coffee producers urge minimum price for poor growers

Reuters

By Ibon Villelabeitia

CARTAGENA, Colombia, Sept 16 (Reuters) - The world's two largest coffee producers, Brazil and Colombia, Tuesday proposed setting a minimum price to allow desperate, impoverished growers to make a living.

The proposal, which was also backed by Central American producing nations, called for an urgent meeting with powerful roasters in developed countries, who they say make huge profits while millions of growers in Latin America, Africa and Asia slip deeper into poverty.

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In turnabout, P&G now selling fair-trade coffee

JOHN NOLAN
Associated Press

CINCINNATI - After years of resistance, Procter & Gamble Co. on Monday began selling a line of "fair-trade" coffee, a more expensive variety intended to return more profits to growers.

Cincinnati-based P&G is selling the Mountain Moonlight brand online and by mail-order request as a part of its Millstone Signature Collection, the company's line of gourmet coffees. Millstone is sold in 10- to 12-ounce bags for about $6.99. The Moonlight version is available only in a 10-ounce size with a suggested retail price of $8.99.

Activists who have lobbied P&G at its annual meeting during the past two years and through shareholders' resolutions to join other companies that sell fair-trade certified coffee hailed P&G's decision as a milestone.

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World coffee producers and consumers seek to pull coffee industry from slump

KIM HOUSEGO, Associated Press Writer Monday, September 15, 2003

(09-15) 12:21 PDT BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) --

Three heads of state and delegates from around the world will attend a coffee summit in Colombia this week aimed at lifting the industry from a ruinous slump caused by a surplus of low-quality coffee beans.

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Honduran President Ricardo Maduro and Colombian President Alvaro Uribe were to address the annual gathering of the International Coffee Organization on Tuesday in the Spanish-colonial walled city of Cartagena.

Uribe told reporters in Bogota Monday he would seek all coffee-consuming countries to rejoin the ICO, which is an intergovernmental body of 45 exporting countries and 18 importing countries. The United States, the world's biggest coffee consumer, withdrew from the ICO in 1993 after a dispute over quotas.

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Green Mountain Coffee Roasters IntroducesNew Fair Trade Certified Organic Flavored Coffee

WATERBURY, Vt.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 15, 2003--Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, Inc. (NASDAQ: GMCR) today announced an addition to its list of double-certified Fair Trade and organic coffees - Organic Hazelnut Select(TM). Fair Trade Certified(TM) coffees insure that small-scale farmers are paid a fair price for their crop.

This distinctive coffee has been several years in the making, and is based on both consumer and customer demand for more Fair Trade and organic flavored coffees. After extensive testing, a custom designed flavoring emerged that had all the characteristics necessary to meet the Company's strict quality standards. In addition to this coffee's Fair Trade certification, both the coffee and the flavoring are certified organic by Quality Assurance International (QAI). With the addition of Organic Hazelnut Select, Green Mountain Coffee now offers four Fair Trade and organic flavored coffees, which include - Organic Viennese Cinnamon(TM), Spring Seasonal Organic Toasted Almond, and Newman's Own(R) Organics Cafe Almond Biscotti.

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Coffee's bitter toll

When prices fall, millions of Third World farmers find themselves struggling to survive.

By John Murphy
Sun Foreign Staff
Originally published September 14, 2003

MURANCHO KUTALA, Ethiopia - For 30 years, coffee was much more than a morning drink to farmer Amalo Sakuma.

It was his life.

He sold the coffee beans he grew on his farm in the Great Rift Valley to traders who peddled them to roasters and coffeehouses as far away as Rome and Los Angeles, earning him enough money to marry two wives and raise 10 children.

But last year when world coffee prices fell to their lowest levels in a century, the 71-year-old grandfather had had enough. He tugged up his once-prized coffee plants in disgust and joined the drug trade.

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Here is what was happening one year ago...

For the convenience of our readers Badgett's Coffee eJournal archives its past journals. You can access these archives by time period by clicking on the archives link in the upper left corner of this page. In the meantime here is what was happening on BCE one year ago - September 14, 2002

Dream of Vietnam's coffee king

"I always dream of building a well- known coffee trademark so that my country can export a large volume of processed coffee, not just green coffee beans," Vietnam' s coffee king Dang Le Nguyen Vu told Xinhua.

Seven years ago, Dang Le Nguyen Vu, director of Trung Nguyen Coffee Co Ltd, was nobody but a medical student whose parents are poor workers. Nurtured by the aspiration to make a fortune for himself and his country by selling processed coffee, Vu, in 1996, opened a coffee roasting facility in Dac Lac -- the kingdom of coffee in Vietnam - with a total workforce of only four, including himself and three of his friends.

Having practically no money and experience, Vu struggled to make his business survive while still having to attend classes. By the time he got a Bachelor's Degree in medicine he had already succeeded in collecting over 30 formulae for roasting, grinding and brewing coffee.

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Choice of coffee can contribute to saving wildlife

By: Jerry Walls, Guest columnist September 13, 2003

Do you want to enjoy your coffee and contribute to saving populations of birds and other important species of wildlife? Consider purchasing and drinking shade-grown coffee.

Shade-grown coffee is a general term used to describe certain common aspects to the traditional coffee farms in the Americas and other parts of the world. Certain Arabica coffees and a few Robusta coffees continue to be grown under the canopy shade of trees vs. out in open, sun-drenched fields. Shade moderates the amount of heat and light reaching the coffee plants. Some experts also say that the shade retains the growing integrity of the soil with regard to moisture, nutrients and other key growing factors.

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Perking up D-FW

Aiming at Starbucks, Dunn Bros. Coffee prepares to invade the Metroplex with 60 new stores
By David Wethe
Dallas Business Journal

Sep. 15 — A mainstay of the Midwest coffee wars is moving into the Metroplex, where it hopes to brew up a Texas-sized battle with industry titan Starbucks for local java drinkers.
Minneapolis-based Dunn Bros. Coffee, whose claim to fame is roasting its own coffee beans on-site, plans to open 60 shops throughout Dallas-Fort Worth over the next five years.

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