Organic, Fair Trade Coffee

We believe that coffee-farming families deserve a healthy environment in which to live and an honest price for their honest labor.

100% of Coffee Exchange's green coffee purchases support environmental sustainability by promoting organic agricultural practices and honest wages for farmers through fair trade pricing. All our decafs are Water Processed (using no chemicals). We purchase most of our coffee through Cooperative Coffees, perhaps the most pro-active Fair Trade/Organic coffee coop in the United States and Canada.

When you look at our menu, it's immediately evident that virtually all our coffees are Certified Organic and Fair Trade. The few that are not both Organic and Fair Trade are either in transition toward organic and fair trade certification or are grown by coffee-farming families who are excluded from the benefits of Fair Trade certification, either because fair trade procedures do not allow for certification of all area coffee-farmers who would otherwise qualify, or because real politics in some producing countries will not pay for Organic or Fair Trade certification premiums.

All of our coffees are either certified organic, certified fair trade or are purchased from farms in transition towards becoming certified organic and/or fair trade.

• Certified Organic Coffee: Coffee certified as Organic by one of several independent, internationally recognized organic certification organizations, such as the Organic Crop Improvement Association (OCIA) as having been grown, harvested and transported without the use of artificial pesticides or fertilizers.
• Fair Trade Coffee: Coffee farmers receive a pre-determined minimum "fair" price for their coffee regardless of the priced determined by world market conditions, which are notorious for yielding rock bottom coffee prices regardless of quality, or for speculator-driven increases in prices. Other benefits of Fair Trade certification to coffee farmers relate to democratically run cooperatives that use a portion of their income for social programs and pre-harvest financing, for education and infrastructure improvements, and health and medicinal assistance, as well as organic growing procedures.
• Transitional Organic and/or Fair Trade Coffee: Coffees grown and harvested by family farmers that are along that path within the standard multi-year transition toward Organic and/or Fair Trade certification.

Our roasts

Time and temperature play important roles in roasting coffee. At Coffee Exchange each coffee is roasted so as to bring out its most intense defining flavorful taste characteristics. We'll roast a Colombian at American roast to accent its light, bright characteristics and the Sumatra at Full City to create a full bodied, syrupy taste experience. Of course, Sumatra is roasted at the French Roast as well, to add that heavy smoky taste. And in between there's the Vienna roast, which brings out the sweetness but keeps Brasileiro's smooth nutty quality. And the Espresso Roast is the ultimate in smoky sweet musky coffee flavor, used sparingly in only a couple coffees that can stand up to the test.

But make no mistake about it: While coffees roasted the same share some flavor characteristics, they retain their natural differences throughout. Sumatra and Ethiopian may both be roasted at Full City and French Roasts, but while their roast characteristics may be similar, their taste characteristics remain distinct and that is what makes this whole discussion really interesting and fun.

• American Roast: Light brown in color with a dry surface, this roast is characterized by a light body and a bright, piquant flavor.
• Full City Roast: A little darker than the American, the Full City Roast creates a full bodied taste experience with a richer, softer flavor.
• Vienna Roast: Much darker than the Full City, the Vienna Roast brings the ambrosial coffee oils to the surface of the bean, and brews a savory, pleasantly bittersweet cup.
• French Roast: For this popular rendition, we roast the coffee beans slightly longer than in a Vienna Roast. The result is a dark, oily bean with a bold smoky flavor and a heady aroma.
• Espresso Roast: This is the end of the line, make-or-break time, where we take the coffee bean as far as we can in the roasting process in pursuit of the redolent, densely flavored espresso.