Our Farmers
Our Farmers:
We started at the source of growing by using Fair-Trade Certified Organic Farms. Using Farms that focus on natural practices, sustainability, and providing fair-trade wages. This practice not only improves the quality of the beans, but also the community that takes care of them. (compassion=better life for all).
These farmers take their work serious and devote their heart and soul to go the extra mile. They hand-select and hand-pick the best berries. Also, we are thoroughly inspected and cleared by the USDA/FDA to allow our coffee beans into the United States as many products are for our safety. Our beans are also certified by Oregon TILTH.
Nature provides the famers with what they need to produce high quality low acidic coffee beans. They have no need to add man-made chemicals, fertilizer or pesticides. By not using these chemicals they keep their water clean, workers safe and the community healthy. Another practice they use is shade trees or canopied farming. This helps protect the plants from insects and birds. Birds are deathly allergic to coffee when it's in the cherry stage. By allows natural fertilization and tilling between the rows allows for a very earthy, clean natural tasting coffee. Coffee should taste like its natural environment, not what a lab thinks it should.
Our Decaf is water-processed to remove the caffeine form the bean. The common decaf process today uses solvents. Typically, solvents used during decaffeination are ethyl acetate, methylene chloride (Dichloromethane, or DCM) or supercritical CO2.
The link Below is for Swiss Water. Swiss Water create a unique decaffeination process using only water. Most water-processed beans are done primary in this manner. In order to get the Swiss Water designation, you must order beans through them. Being we are going directly from farms; we do not carry their designation. But our decaffeination is still just water only. They offer an easy to understand graphic on their site.
Our Chemical-Free Decaffeination Process | Swiss Water
When corporations stepped in, they want more profit, lower overhead and faster turnaround time. This led to using chemicals to make sure a crop was grown as fast as it can with higher yield. This leads to low quality taste, bitterness, and very acidic coffee. Another practice used in production farming is equipment. This led to less workers and more twigs, leaves and “other” things in the bags of raw coffee beans. The “other” things led to insects and mold issues while stored and shipped. This also led to lower inspection quality at customs. By us ordering in small batches the farms are not overwhelmed insuring a much higher quality and fresher coffee bean.