Posted on 03/07/2010 7:16:48 PM PST by Moe Tzadik
GUATEMALA CITY Some 450,000 pounds of organic coffee sit in a warehouse here, stacked neatly in 132-pound bags. It's some of the world's best coffee, but Gerardo De Leon can't sell it.
"This is very high quality and it's organic. But ... the roasters don't want to pay extra these days," says the manager of FEDECOCAGUA, Guatemala's largest growers' cooperative, which represents 20,000 farmers.
De Leon is asking $2 per pound for the unroasted coffee, about 50 cents more than the going price. But he says he'll soon have to sell it as conventionally grown coffee, which sells for less.
That's why many Mesoamerican farmers here are starting to give up on organic coffee: The premium price that it used to fetch is disappearing.
(Excerpt) Read more at seattletimes.nwsource.com ...
What??? 'indigenous peoples' 'of color' wanted to turn a buck and not 'save the planet' ???
I won’t consume anything organic!!!
I’ll stick with my Folgers.
I guess the organic kids in Birkenstocks have started to count their pennies.
De Leon is asking $2 per pound for the unroasted coffee, about 50 cents more than the going price. But he says he’ll soon have to sell it as conventionally grown coffee, which sells for less.
____________________________________________________
Supply and demand sure is a bitch!
I won’t either, it was fertilized with poop.
Did you see the latest Penn & Teller on cable? Penn ransacked organic food. It was great.
Now the green-freak libs won't even pay a measley 25% premium for pure organic coffee? What's the world coming to? Next thing you know they won't even pay 50% more for pure, non-carboniferous, windmill-made electrons unless the government makes them!
Analyze the soil for the crop and fertilize it with the proper chemicals and use pesticides to eliminate the bugs and i’m first in line!!!
Here in Vermont we have a LOT of organic coffee and fair-prices-to-the-growers coffee.
Actually my wife once bought a five-pound bag of this hippie coffee, on sale at the local co-op. It was the best coffee I've ever tasted, but I wouldn't want to pay full price for it. The name of it is a real hoot. But it's delicious. I hope we can get some more one day, if it ever goes on sale again.
If it’s not processed it’s not coffee.
The dude needs to sell it direct to consumers online. The *real* free market. :)
I've seen too many films of their produce fertilized with honey buckets!
The younger generations probably aren’t allowed to see such things!
We had someone over who went on and on about all the gourmet coffees he drank and how good they all were.
Then my wife served our coffee, and he started talking about ‘his’ coffees again, trying to guess what this new wonderful coffee was.
He was startled to find out it was plain ‘ole Folgers
The article doesn’t make any sense. The demand for it is going up, but the price is going down?
Well at least it isn’t Starbucks!
Probably not.
I have been a customer of the same coffee roaster for over 15 years, and I have had to switch to a blended coffee, due to the low quality of their Columbian beans. If they could find good quality, they could find someone to buy it. Trust me, I would be first in line.
Hello, my name is bigredkitty1 and I am a caffeine addict.
If demand is up and price is down.
Then the problem is oversupply.
What are you going to eat, styrofoam peanuts?
I tend to like east African coffees myself. The absolute best coffee (in my opinion) is what I get when I eat Ethiopian food. They actually roast the beans to order for coffee! Rich, strong, not bitter and a completely different mouth feel. If you enjoy coffee for more than just go juice, I recommend that you try it.
Problem is that the 25% premium at the wholesale level becomes more like 100% at the retail level. Too many overly greedy middle-men.
I prefer organic coffee.
So would I. Can get a bucket of it for $5. And it stores longer.
Unfortunately my wife insists on getting the expensive stuff at $7 to $9 a lb, when it’s on sale.

I insist on Chase & Sanborn.
Ja, shore...Mrs. Olsen.
that’s too bad, organic coffee is delicious.
Rich, strong, not bitter and a completely different mouth feel. If you enjoy coffee for more than just go juice, I recommend that you try it.
+++++++++
Exactly. I cannot stand it when people claim burned beans equals strong coffee. All the caffeine and coffee oils are roasted out of them.
No but im not going to buy anything fertilized with shit and not raised utilizing pesticides!
Is that your flag or philosophy?
>>The demand for it is going up, but the price is going down?<<
As usual, the writers of the article don’t know even Econ 101. If there is “demand” but “not at the price” then that isn’t “demand.” It is “quantity demanded.”
Any child of 12 should know the difference (although, sadly few do). Any college grad and every politician should also know 9and sadly, few do).
Folgers Black Silk. Good.
Didn’t she marry Juan Valdez?
THIS, ma'am, is a stone cold caffeine addict:
>>Exactly. I cannot stand it when people claim burned beans equals strong coffee. All the caffeine and coffee oils are roasted out of them.
<<
There is a reason people who actually TASTE the coffee 9as opposed to being impressed by the branding) call it “charbucks.”
No.
This is:
Now THAT is a coffee I can get behind!
I can quit any time I want to. I just haven't happened to want to, for the past few decades.
Is that the queen of the hop?
I know what you meant, but before libtards hijacked the word “organic,” it was a term used to describe living or formerly living things. Since I’m not libtard, when you say “I’m not eating organic food,” it makes me laugh, since that leaves only inorganics like rocks.
Hell that’s mine too.
Maybe they should plan to expand in order to help these growers out.
My first choice is Dunkin Doughnuts coffee...yummy!
:-P
From their website:
Renovations for C3 were done in accordance with LEED green building guidelines, using renewable resources, reclaimed materials, and energy efficient products wherever possible.
Come in and check out our counter top made of recycled glass, tables made of sunflower seed husks and bamboo, and our eco-friendly Marmoleum floor.
Construction was completed with non-VOC paints and materials, energy efficient lights and appliances, and lo-flow water fixtures.
I don't see any Global Carbon Offsets paid to Al Gore's fraudster company to cover the bean's flight to Logan and trucking to a roaster and then the store though...
I'll stick with my YUletide BANquet.
It's cheap and gets the job done.
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