Comments on: Haitian Coffee

By: pushmedia1

pushmedia1 — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 11:03:55 +0000

To be honest, I was motivated to email Peet’s because I wanted to see if they’d give me some bs about fair trade… I had a whole post planned in my head about how hippies kill Haitian children… or something.

I was more or less blown away by their response that they really only cared about quality.

By: sraffa

sraffa — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 03:14:00 +0000

push- I think your instinct is good, but with coffee, quality is the name of the game, like Peet’s said. You get much lower prices by having regular or bad quality coffee.

But some company must take the bad coffee (it’s nestle with nescafe but still. Maybe folger’s is the one to contact? Maybe they could commit to buying x pounds of haitian coffee for the next few years to support Haiti? Or market a Haitian blend so people could choose to support Haiti? Haiti is so small relative to major producers like Brazil that this could have a big impact.

By: swong

swong — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 17:34:43 +0000

I thought coffee plants need lots of tree cover to grow, and Haiti is notoriously deforested. Wonder what other cash crops will grow there. Sugarcane? Tobacco? Pot? Poppies?

By: pushmedia1

pushmedia1 — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 03:35:21 +0000

heh. For the record, Peet’s and that other place are NOT the best coffee in the states. My favorite coffee is Barefoot in Santa Clara or Ritual in the Mission SF. Peet’s is pretty good, though.

By: Ken Houghton

Ken Houghton — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 23:55:48 +0000

"Jerry Baldwin, co-founder of Starbucks...now owns Peet’s Coffee and Tea" NOW I'm depressed. The best coffee available in the states is owned by the spit-or-swallow people.