The Coffee Clash

Many firms see a marketing advantage in selling politically correct beans. Will Starbucks get hurt?

By MARGOT ROOSEVELT/HUATUSCO

In a corner of a dilapidated brick coffee mill, Lindsey Bolger is deep in concentration. Outside the window, the lush cloud forest of Mexico's Veracruz state stretches to a blue-green horizon, and hummingbirds dip into the wild hibiscus. The American, 40, closes her eyes, bending over a row of 12 white cups on a round metal table. Each contains coffee from the new harvest, toasted at 400ºF in a small roaster on the counter. Bolger shakes each cup and sniffs deeply. "I'm looking for defects," she says. "Underripe beans, overripe beans, sour flavors, mold. If even one bean out of 60 is flawed, you can tell."

Bolger is chief buyer for Vermont's Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, the Mexican mill's largest customer. For the 1,900 farmers who belong to the Huatusco cooperative, her opinion can mean food on the table — or not. If her standards are high, it is understandable. She pays twice the market price for 456,000 lbs. of their coffee. Why? Co-op president Josafat Hernandez has a simple explanation: "It allows us to survive." Coffee prices on the world market have fallen by two-thirds in the past five years to below what it costs to grow the beans here. Misery stalks the co-op's 43 hamlets, where as many as half the men have emigrated to Mexico City's slums or the U.S. Along the roads, children as young as 5 pick coffee, baskets strapped to their waists.

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