Fair Trade
This week's entry from the Coffee Book 'o Doom. God Bless America for legal drugs.

Rating: * *

Coffee Book o' Doom Ratings

In the tradition of the late, great Next Generation Magazine (which had nothing to do with coffee), I decided to use the five-point scale for the Coffee Book 'o Doom.

* -- Poor
* * -- Average
* * * -- Very Good
* * * * -- Excellent
* * * * * -- Revolutionary

January 20, 2003

I wasted a year of my life working at Starbucks. This ongoing series is my revenge.

Somewhere on the field between social awareness and political correctness lies the Starbucks Fair Trade blend. To quote from an actual bag: "The Fair Trade label certifies that the farmers who grew this coffee received a fair price for their harvest." The "Fair Trade movement" works to guarantee coffee growers a living wage. This all sounds nice and true, and Starbucks should be commended for it.

Then again, the cynic in me would start asking questions. If FT pays its farmers a living wage, what about the non-FT coffees? What about other coffee-growing regions? If this is such a good idea, why is it only extended to one blend? Why not a Fair Trade Columbia, for instance? And to all the social activists, what about the competing coffee shops?

The sad truth is that we're happy with gimmicks. We don't really want to think about some peasant farmer in Central America, we just pretend to make a difference when what we really invest is just a pittance. Everybody likes the idea of FT; the coffee itself remains unsold.

And yet there's the real problem: the coffee itself. Its scent and texture are rather indistinct; the experience is as though several generic coffees were slapped together. It's the Messina-Oats-Garfunkel-Lisa Simpson of coffees.

And the taste of FT is brutal, almost shocking. The word that comes to mind is "slashing." Fair Trade slashes across my tongue like a knife. It's as if a party of Zapatistas have invaded my mouth, and I'm not invited. This is not a beverage; it is an indictment.

Every Starbucks employee is given something called a "Partner Coffee Passport," a book where Baristas taste the coffees, write down their impressions, and then recite it all back to the customers.

The joke, of course, is that these "impressions" are often quoting the instruction books. Baristas are expected to parrot back what Marketing says.

This approach never sat well with me, so I wrote down my honest opinions. After all, Starbucks asked for it.

The moral lesson: don't become another faceless corporate drone. And pour your own damn coffee!