a friend of mine told me i should post again. so here goes. Right now i've been wrestling mostly with the idea of fair trade coffee... along with child labor.
my good friend recently got a job at starbucks. Actually, a have a few friends that work at starbucks. Now i started hearing rumors about Starbucks not providing fair trade coffee and so i decided to look up on it. I read that to be fair trade certified, you have to be a small scale coffee grower. Well, starbucks doesn't purchase much from small scale growers because they're so enormous. So if you go into a starbucks you'll only see one out of the 39 different coffees being fair trade. Anwyays, i still am not convinced that starbucks is supportive of paying fair wages for their coffee all around. I mean that's what they advertise... but i just dont really believe it. ALSO...Supposedly each startbucks is supposed to brew fair trade coffee once a week as the coffee of the day. I never see that happening. You're also supposed to have the option of having fair trade coffee even if they aren't brewing it. That means the employee is supposed to french press the coffee for you. According to some website, most of the employees are super annoyed when you do that... so if anyone goes to a starbucks and is just getting coffee, you should ask for it. maybe just for kicks, maybe to see the importance of fair trade coffee within our local coffee shops.
just a bunch of random thoughts i guess.. as soon as i learn more, i'll tell you more. as for now, annoy a starbucks employee by asking for fair trade coffee... support a mom and pop coffee grower trying to get by in columbia... be educated on fair trade coffee.
blessings
5 comments:
well, i don't think it's going to do much good to go and annoy a starbucks employee, unless you would just really enjoy that. cause then all you'll get is an annoyed employee. that's like when i said i don't want to tip them because starbucks has too much money (but i still don't, because i'm poor). just don't go to starbucks or something. people don't go to starbucks because their coffee is the best.. they go there because starbucks is brilliant and has created and built up the entire coffee shop culture around itself so it is the only thing people know. go to seattle's best like me. i don't know how their coffee buying works but it tastes 8 times better anyway.
does the church buy fair trade coffee? from now on i will annoy the starbucks people just for you.
god bless,
mary
so one, i agree with aroura that annoying starbucks employees wont do anything. (the peons you interact with dont have any say in coffee purchasing practices).
tipping is just a generous thing you can do to help employees. i know quite a few college students that are starbucks employess who would appreciate a tiny bit extra cash. but if you yourself dont hae money to tip, dont. thats why its tipping. it above and beyond the call of duty. there is no expected 15% at starbucks.
go ahead and ask for french pressed cafe estima blend (their current fair trade certfied blend). but if they are busy, of course they dont want to have to do extra work. and you'll take an extra 5-10 mins to get your coffee.
and my opinion... if you hate starbucks you might as well hate seattle's best and peet's as well, who are all crushing mom and pop local coffee shops.
and most people dont go to starbucks for their brewed coffee anyway, they go for espresso drinks. which starbucks makes quite well.
so i think the good in annoying a starbucks employee benefits the greater good only because you raise awareness of the demand for it. I went to a coffee shop last week and asked about fair trade coffee and out of four employees, only one "sorta" knew what it was all about. And extra work? any espresso drink is just about as much work as brewing a cup of french pressed coffee. It might actually take less time.
um.. i love coffee. i love in in a french press. I love it in a dark roast. If I drink it from starbucks. Sadly I drank it from Burger King- they now officially call it "Joe" and have cups that say so... and well I usually drink it brewed at Cosmos which is owned by Patrick and Paul. Today I called Paul, Patrick. That was a woops. Sometimes I drink it at Deitrichs, but only when i go to PB with Ed. I have no idea what fair trade coffee is, but I think I'm gonna drink it. And when I do, I'm gonna toast it to Buch. Or better yet, Buch why don't you get down here and work for me and I'll buy you a cup a week. :) I love your passion for all things right- down deep in your soul.
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