Alrighty...Im not completly informed about starbucks...what are they doing wrong. Anyone care to fill me in?
ha! i knew i wasnt the only one. ps, organic beans are way important to me. pesticides and herbacides from third world countries that dont have the same safety standards that we do~~well, that's just cancer waiting to happen. pps, do you ever wonder if pple who insist on drinking fairly-traded coffee shop at dollar-stores, walmarts and places like the gap that take advantage of third world labour? i mean every bit makes a difference but recently i was on the recieving end of a lecture about fair trade coffee from someone who shops religiously at dollar stores. just doesnt add up, ykwim? ppps, starbucks is evil
you're young, there's still hope that you'll become an enlightened, edumacated and informed coffee consumer if you insist on drinking coffee at such a young age.
Starbucks isn't evil because of a lack of fair trade coffee - they're buying as much as they can find (and the percentage of coffee they sell that is fair trade is growing quickly). Starbucks = bad for two main reasons: their shoddy relationships with organized labour, and their unethical business (saturating a market and operating at a loss until competitors are closed, buying competitors leases, etc). Not to mention how they sued Haida Bucks.
i learned something interesting about fair trade beans the other day when i was reading up about all of this. it seems that fair trade beans are only a tiny percentage more expensive than regular beans (like 5%), and that there isnt really any way of regulating whether or not the money actually gets to the farmers. sounds like another greenwash marketing scam. bleh. oh, and there are a zillion or so legal hoops that farmers have to jump thru in order to be recognized as 'fair-trade' which makes it really difficult for joe the coffee bean farmer to get certified ps, haida bucks?
Is fair trade perfect? No. But is it about as good as you can buy right now? Probably. And Haida Bucks was a coffee shop on the Queen Charlotte Islands... And yeah, they got sued by Starbucks and had to change their name for copyright infringement.
Eh. I don't drink coffee. I drink a ton of fair-trade tea. I love tea. Even saying the word makes me feel warm inside.
I love love LOVE Kicking Horse and Oso Negro. And both are from reallyreally close to where I live. ALL of the cafe's and small restaurants around here have either Kicking Horse or Oso Negro. Real coffee drinkers know - coffee is like religion. Haha.
I love love love oso coffee and SSI coffee. I've yet to try kicking horse but I'm sure its wonderful. I had the opportunity to travel to Guatemala last winter and I'll tell you what the coffee there was better than any coffeee I've ever tasted. So very fresh. Now those were some local beans. Oh yeah.
I am a Barista and we serve Kicking Horse, it's an awesome homegrown lil' company that really goes the distance for their customers, not to mention the exceptional quality of their coffee and I have vowed to win over all of Timmys customers one cup at a time.
uke: bleh, Tim's is nasty ass shit. I buy my beans at the Broadway Roastery here (locally owned though they have 3 locations in S'toon now) and I usually drag my friends there for coffee, but I did just have a vanilla latte at the Fine Art Cafe (which is halfway between my house and the Broadway Roastery heh, I go there when the weather is shite like today) and it was ridiculously delicious. Plus they have some super yummy wraps there.
I go to the roastery and the fine arts cafe constantly when I'm in Saskie, like waaay to much. My mom lives right over on 12th and Landsdowne. In fact theres painting on the side of the fine arts cafe that depicts my back, beside a jug of fuel (Im a firedancer). Long hair backless top-its done in blues and purples. I don;t really live in Saskatoon much anymore but I was there for a couple months this fall. For the next few years I'll most likely be working for Smokey Lake, cooking. The bosses at Smokey own the Ness Creek land. We've prolly passed eachother in the street a bunch. Such a small small world isn't it?
Heh, considering one of my old high school buddies lived on 13th and Landsdowne while we were in school together, and I'm now over on 13th and Clarence... yeah, small world. Jesus. I haven't been up to Ness in a few years though, I never have money around then for it nor can I usually get the time booked off for it.
13th and Clarence eh, yeah thats pretty close to my ma's house. My friend Angela works at the fine arts cafe. She has freckles and frizzy reddish hair, wears alot of homemade clothes. If you want you can freak her out and say hi to her for me from Crystal.
