Stinkers!

So...you go to the store and buy your longtime usual commercial coffee in a can expecting nothing more nor less than what you've ever got from it before. In the wee hours of the morning you drag yourself out of bed the next day, give said can of wakey, wakey a twist of the ol' can opener, make your usual batch of brew and sit down to take that magical first sip. But this time, rather than being "Good to the Last drop," your cup smells like something dead dropped in it when you weren't looking. Thinking it must be a fluke, you pour out the cup and try another...to no avail. It tastes terrible. Risking being late for work, you pour out the whole batch and hope for better tomorrow. Tomorrow comes, and guess what? All is normal. No stink. No bad taste.

You've just experienced a stinker. No, that's not something to be blamed on the dog. It is a very real term used in the coffee industry for beans that are either diseased or rotten but made it through the process and into your cup. A stinker bean usually looks black, shriveled up, and bad. If it gets through the watchful eyes of the pre-roasting staff and into the roast, and then into the grinder, it can pollute a whole can of coffee.

Back in the mid-1990's, before I knew what specialty coffee was, I got a stinker in my can of commercial coffee. It smelled like an old, dirty ashtray and tasted just as bad though I've never tasted one. The coffee was so bad that I had to throw the whole 2 lb. can away.

The specialty coffee industry is susceptible to stinkers just like any other commercial coffee company. We all are at the mercy of the $1 a day coffee workers who are commissioned with the task of sorting through trillions of beans looking for that one stinker. Their task is even more daunting that that of finding the proverbial needle in the haystack.

Playing Dead

Oh, the miles I would walk. As an adolescent in a small town, the pickins' were often slim for friends. Quite often, I walked or rode my bicycle about 10 miles just to spend the day with a friend that lived north of New Windsor, Illinois.

I remember one time thinking that if I walked across the fields I would be able to cut off a significant amount of time. So the first thing I did was fix the Alpha water tower in my sights and headed directly for it. Having never taken such an adventure before, I didn't consider what might lie ahead: hills, obstacles, and animals. I remember getting about two miles into this trek when I had to cross a fence into a pasture. Doing so didn't scare me because the fence was at the bottom of a hill and I couldn't see the bull on the other side. Of course, my perspective changed quite rapidly when I topped the hill and saw the biggest, meanest looking bull in the whole world. The fact that New Windsor, Illinois is home of the Henry County Fair which is home of one of the country's most respected rodeos didn't help. Immediate thoughts of being mauled by a beast who was still holding a grudge against a clown quickened my pace to the adjoining fence which I hoped would at least slow the bull down if he chased me.

Fortunately for the sake of my wife and the existence of our children and grandchildren, the bull was facing east as I hurried west. He didn't even know I was in the neighborhood: no snort, no pawing up dust, not even a flick of the tail. Nothing.

Fixing my sights on the Alpha water tower again, I plodded on toward the home country, but not across the fields. Rather, I decided my shortcut wasn't worth the risk and went back to the highway. It was my habit on these trips to stop every other mile or so and lay down in the ditch and act dead. I'd done this on several occasions to no avail. Either people didn't see me or they didn't care that a dead 12 year old boy was rotting along the roadside. Either way, being left for dead didn't help my self-esteem anymore than being ignored by an angry bull.

By the time I got back to Alpha, I was thirsty, tired and feeling lower than a snakes belly for having been ignored by passing motorists. I made this and other multi-mile trips on foot many times. I even made several trips to Galesburg, which according to Mapquest.com is 18 miles one way. No one stopped to check out the dead boy then either.

I feel much better about myself now. I'm older, highly educated, well respected in my community and in my profession, and I don't feel the need to garner attention by playing dead in the ditches. Besides, if I played dead in the ditches now, people might take me too serious and call the authorties. "911. What's your emergency?" "Uh, yeah. I think there's a dead guy in the ditch. I mean he's all wrinkly and just laying there." The next day's headline: Local Pastor Plays Dead. Says He is Imitating His Congregation." That wouldn't go over very well.

Organic or Natural?

There's an ongoing debate within the coffee industry over the term "organic." Without getting into the boring details organizations within the coffee industry have both created a product and a desire to go with it. In response to consumers' health concerns and the aversion from anything chemical, coffee moguls started marketing "Organic" coffee beans: coffee beans that are grown without pesticides, insecticides and any other dangerous chemicals. For the garden variety American, that sounds great! Of course it does; our context is chemically laden cornfields and soybean fields.

Anyone who has been to a coffee producing nation however, knows that the context of that region is anything but typical American. Like it or not, our $2.00 cup of premium specialty coffee that sells on the retail shelves of our fancy American coffee boutiques comes from the hands of the poorest of the poor of our world--underdeveloped farms in underdeveloped regions in underdeveloped countries. Underdeveloped is the politically correct term for dirt poor.

It is either ironic or just plain wrong that Americans spend more on 1 cup of coffee than the typical coffee worker earns in 2 days.

So what does this have to do with "organic" products? Everything!

Coffee workers aren't the only ones who are dirt poor--so are the coffee farmers.
THEY DON'T HAVE THE MONEY FOR PESTICIDES, INSECTICIDES OR ANY OTHER CHEMICALS. They'll cultivate their coffee trees, prune them and care for them, but chemicals are not a luxury they can afford!

So tell me now which coffees are "organic." Did you say all of them? If so, you just won a brand new car!! That's right folks, coffee is an organic product by default! You know what isn't organic: the "organic" organizations that certify coffees as organic for a "nominal fee."

Here's the scam: find out what the consumer wants and rename an existing product to fit the bill.
In this case, consumers rightly want chemical free coffee. That's great except that the coffee bean suppliers forgot to tell consumers that coffee is chemical free by default. In steps the marketing moguls and all of a sudden we start seeing "Certified Organic Coffee" show up on the menu board. And guess who gets the profits from that little certification? It's not the farmer. It's not the worker. It's not the coffee shop or the coffee shop workers. It's not the roaster.

There's one place where all those "nominal" fees go...the certifying organization.