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Does Fair Trade coffee taste as good as regular coffee? . |
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Ours tastes better. Farmers making a good living for their family put their heart, soul and their pride into their work. Long-term, loyal relationships give us the chance to give them lots of feedback that improves flavor (in particular about how the coffee cherry is hulled and dried). |
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Are all Larry's Beans coffees Fair Trade?
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We're 99% Fair Trade, The other 0.01% is our Kauai Blend from Hawaii, where there's no need for Fair Trade. |
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How do you know the money actually goes to the farmer? |
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We work with Quality Control Services (QCS) to document that our full payments goes directly to the Fair Trade co-op. The international Fair Trade Labeling Organization audits the co-ops to make sure payments are fairly distributed to each individual farmer. (The documents are available online, so you can see for yourself.) |
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Does buying Organic coffee benefit farmers almost as much as Fair Trade? |
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Organic certification ensures how coffee is grown, not how it's paid for. It does not address the massive economic problems that small farmers increasingly face. |
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What does transitional mean?
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The coffee is grown without harmful chemicals, yet still in the midst of the organic certification process, which generally takes three years. Selling "transitional" helps small farmers go organic.
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So you're organic and Fair Trade, but what else do you do for the world?
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We don't just stop at organic or Fair Trade. We've green-o-vated our warehouse with natural daylighting, low flush toilets, reclaimed timbers and an edible yard; we run two delivery vehicles on waste veggie oil, and we've even developed state-of-the-art bio-bags for our coffee that biodegrade in your home compost or in landfill (most biodegradable plastics don't breakdown unless they are exposed to oxygen - something in short supply in most landfills we've spent time in).
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Is Larry's Beans part of TransFair? |
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We left TransFair in 2004 because we did not want to be confused with companies like Starbucks that only offer a small selection of Fair Trade coffee. TransFair USA certifies only specific batches of coffee, not companies. |
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What does the Fair Trade Federation seal mean? |
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To be accepted as a member of the Fair Trade Federation, a company has to devote ALL of its applicable inventory to Fair Trade products. |
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Why are the farmers part of "co-ops"?
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Because one small farm can't produce enough coffee to fill a container for export, but a bunch of them can. |
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Why is your expresso secret? |
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A roaster's espresso blend is their signature. We put GONZO amounts of effort into creating what we consider to be the perfect espresso. Our competitors would love to know how we do it. |
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Who is Larry? |
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Me. |
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How is your decaf decaffed? |
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The Swiss-Water style. A totally natural process that washes caffeine out of the beans - blammo!
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