The coffee we serve

Did you know that the coffee we serve at Fellowship Hour is fair trade? We purchase all of our coffee from Dean’s Beans, and it is organic, fair-trade, shade-grown, bird-friendly (and Kosher to boot!).

We made the decision to serve only fair trade coffee several years ago, and for the last year all of the coffee has also been organic. What is “fair trade coffee”? When you buy fair trade coffee, you are assured that the farmers are justly compensated, and that the businesses in developing countries are sustainable and positively influence their communities.

Dean’s Beans writes:

Each player in our cycle of production and distribution, from the farmer to the consumer, participates in socially just and environmentally responsible trade. We hope that all other coffee companies will follow our lead. We only purchase beans from small farmer cooperatives, largely made up of indigenous peoples working hard to maintain their culture and lifestyles in a hostile world (Dean has a long history as a lawyer and activist in indigenous rights, one of the reasons he founded the company). We do not buy beans from large estates and farms. We’ve been there, and have seen the conditions of chronic poverty and malnutrition within which many of these farms produce those other coffees. Look in your kitchen – do you know where your beans come from?

If you’re curious, the regular coffee we serve is Colombian, and the decaffeinated is Peruvian French Roast.