JulieCraves

Blends/Multiple / Coffee reviews / Retail and specialty roasters

Coffee review: Audubon coffee

[For reference only…Audubon Coffee Club is now defunct]

Plainspoken Coffee. A Coffee Review for Ordinary People by Ordinary People, #13.  Audubon Premium Shade Grown Coffees. A review in our conservation organization coffee series.

The National Audubon Society promotes a small line of “habitat-friendly certified organic premium shade grown” coffees*, which are available at some supermarkets, and via their Audubon Coffee Club web site. All the coffees are Rainforest Alliance certified. They are distributed by Rogers Family Company, whose other brands include San Francisco Bay Gourmet Coffee, The Organic Coffee Co., Fairwinds Coffee, Cunningham’s Coffee, Pleasant Hill Farms Quality Coffee, and East India Coffee and Tea.  Rogers Family Company only buys beans from “farms that have demonstrated an interest in environmental responsibility” and in fact, owns at least two plantations.

Several kinds of Audubon coffee are offered: a Breakfast Blend, Rainforest Blend, French Roast and Decaf, and can be purchased ground or whole bean at the web site. Nowhere on the web site or package can you determine the country of origin of these coffees, much less a region or farm (although they may be sourced at least in part from the Rogers Family Panamanian farms). Nor do you get a choice of roast.  A roast level is not indicated on the package, but on the web site, away from the individual product pages, it notes that beans are “roasted to their fullest flavor point – a little darker than most coffees.” (Update: the web site is now much more thorough, and the coffees are now certified organic and 100% Rainforest Alliance certified.)

In my local grocery store, Audubon coffee was only available ground, at about $9.50 for 12 oz.  I purchased the Breakfast Blend, featuring the John James Audubon portrait of a Red-shouldered Hawk on the label.  An interesting (odd?) choice of bird, as many populations are not migratory, and those that do winter in the northern tropics are found in lowlands and avoid higher elevations, where most coffee would be grown.

The bottom of my package indicated it was distributed by JBR Gourmet Foods, Inc.  JBR changed its name to Rogers Family Company in late 2005.  I hoped this coffee wasn’t that old!

As luck would have it, there were many people hanging around the day we tried this coffee, so we had a lot of opinions. Most of us were unenthusiastic.  The most frequent comment was that it tasted over-roasted, burnt, and bitter.  Even fresh, it kind of tasted like coffee that had been left cooking in the pot too long.  It was quite acidic, but left a “hairy” feeling on the tongue. For the tasting panel regulars, it was not much beyond diner coffee.

Ergo, regular reviewers gave this coffee a very low score, averaging 1.25 motmots.  Two reviewers who frequently drink grocery store coffee liked it more, and their average score was 2.5 motmots. This was an interesting result, and indicates that this coffee might be a “step up” for ordinary coffee drinkers and convince them to switch to sustainable coffee.  However, I expect that many people would need to be farm more impressed to spend the extra money.  It is probably better fresher, or whole bean, but alas, I picked this up the way many people might — off the shelf of a busy grocery store.

I’d like to try this fresher, and whole bean, via the coffee club, or hear from folks who have tried it this way.

*There is some interesting history to this coffee. According to “Sustainable Coffee at the Crossroads” (Rice and McLean, Consumers Choice Council, 1999), Audubon originally sold the very first coffee using Smithsonian’s Bird-Friendly certification criteria, around 1997. It was originally roasted by Boyd’s Coffee and called Cafe Audubon. Audubon dumped it because they were not happy with the sales and marketing revenue.

Coffee and the environment / Organic coffee

Pesticides used on coffee farms, part 4: Organic coffee & further resources

I’m sure once you examine the effects of the pesticides that are commonly used on coffee, you will agree that the workers, the environment, and the folks downstream are all better off if coffee is grown without pesticides.  Careful cultivation and biocontrol makes it possible to combat many common pests and grow coffee without these chemicals.  And you can support the farms that have taken these steps by purchasing organic coffee.

Organic coffee information
First, a few facts about organic coffee. Certified organic coffee means that it has been produced under standardized conditions, which are verified by inspections. Farms or cooperatives pay for certification, including accommodating inspectors and paying for their travel. American consumers often see the label on the left certifying organic products, including coffee. Requirements for this seal include no use of prohibited substances on the land for at least three years.  This includes most synthetic pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers. Other certification requirements include a buffer between the coffee and any other crop not grown organically, and a plan that demonstrates methods the prevent erosion and other sustainable methods.

The USDA also accredits other agencies to certify organic products using the same standards.  A common one for coffee is the OCIA. There are also various state agencies. The Eco-labels web site has much more information.

Many farms have never used any sort of chemical input on their coffee crops, often because chemicals are expensive and the farmers cannot afford to purchase them. The farms, or cooperatives they belong to, may not have the financial resources to pay to have their product certified organic even if they qualify, because it incurs various fees. These could be considered “passive organic.”

Other farms may be missing an element which disqualifies them from certification.  While I believe all of the elements are important, I’d much prefer to buy coffee from, for example, a farm that judiciously applies small amounts of non-organic fertilizer and preserves 100 ha of native forest on its land than a certified organic farm that uses half its land for a cattle pasture.

That being said, if your coffee is not certified organic, it will take careful research to know if your coffee is sourced from farms that practice sustainable methods. Because a number of common coffee pests and pathogens are more difficult to control naturally when the coffee is grown in the sun, it’s often a good bet that organic coffee is also grown under shade.  Certified organic coffee represents less than 1% of the market, an astonishingly low figure.  Therefore, buying organic coffee is nearly always good for the environment.

A final thought: it is abundantly true that Americans apply more frightening chemicals to their lawns than most coffee farmers apply to their crops.  And specialty coffee (e.g., not produced by the big four) is still one of the most rustically farmed crops in the world. I don’t think that makes it hypocritical to encourage and support organic coffee farming. As my mom used to say, “Two wrongs don’t make a right.”

Pesticides birds, humans, and wildlife

Coffee without chemicals

Blends/Multiple / Coffee reviews

Coffee review: Song Bird Coffee

songbird-coffee-new-logoUpdate: As of late 2016, this line of coffee was re-launched and is now certified Bird-Friendly (and therefore also organic) as well as  Fairtrade certified. It is still roasted by Thanksgiving Coffee Company. There are currently four varieties/roast levels.

Plainspoken Coffee. A Coffee Review for Ordinary People by Ordinary People, #12. A review in our conservation organization coffee series.

American Birding Association Song Bird Coffee

The American Birding Association is a nearly 40-year-old group that caters specifically to recreational birders. In recent years, the ABA has focused more on bird conservation. One aspect of that initiative was the promotion of Song Bird Coffee, roasted and sold by Thanksgiving Coffee Company. Fifteen cents of each package sold goes to ABA education and conservation projects, and another fifteen cents is returned to the growers [as of 2016, this has been changed to a percentage of each sale].

Song Bird Coffee is sold in 7 varieties, including decaf and flavored; each package depicts a different North American breeding bird species that winters in Latin American coffee-growing regions. Most coffees are certified organic, many are Fair Trade. They are all advertised as shade-grown, although none of them are certified by Rainforest Alliance or Smithsonian even though the descriptions list “shade grown” under “Certifications.”  The web site says,

Thanksgiving Coffee uses verified shade grown coffee. This means that its CEO, Paul Katzeff, or the importer has personally inspected the farm to insure that the plants are properly grown in the shade.

Well, you all know what I think about that. Song Bird Coffees are only labeled to country of origin, but the web site provides further information. All the Song Bird Coffees I investigated do appear to be sourced from areas that typically do grow under shade. However, they are not labeled as Smithsonian Bird-Friendly, which is the only true shade certification. This is a little unsettling, especially since they are targeted at consumers who may just be entering the sustainable coffee market.

We tried the Panama Blend, in large part because it was sourced from Finca Hartmann, a farm whose coffee we have already reviewed.  This was billed as a medium roast, and the beans were on the dark side of medium brown, with a sheen of oil.  Our impression from other Thanksgiving Coffee varieties is that they tend to roast a little on the dark side, which probably helps make these so acceptable to American consumers.

We found this coffee to be substantially similar to the other Finca Hartmanns: a classic cup, soft and smooth, with no remarkable qualities.  It did not cool very gracefully, becoming a little bitter, but less so when brewed in a drip machine, which is likely how most people will drink it.  In fact, when brewed in a drip through a paper filter, it was at its smoothest and most muted.  Although none of us were blown away by it, we think people would find this a nice step up from grocery store coffee, and it could certainly win some converts. It earned 2.25 motmots.

A couple of other Song Bird Coffees have been reviewed at Coffee Review, and received higher kudos, they are noted in this list of the other varieties of Song Bird Coffee, with source information. Many birders know them by their bird labels, which are given in parentheses, along with a link to information about the bird.

*If I had to pick one of these as the most biodiversity-friendly, it would be the Guatemalan. If I wanted to avoid one, it would be the Costa Rican. Real shade coffee is uncommon in Costa Rica; about 30% of Costa Rican production is sun coffee, and about 50% more is in shade monoculture…they allow very minimal shade to be labeled “shade coffee.”  I was unable to determine a precise source for this coffee, although the importer notes the varieties are bourbon, typica (both those require some shade), cataui, and caturra (both of those used in CR for sun coffee). I’ll be writing more about Costa Rica in the future.

Coffee awards and competitions

Bolivian Cup of Fair Trade

The C&C tasting panel’s favorite coffee, among tough competition, is still Paradise Roasters’ Calama Marka Bolivia Cup of Excellence, which is now, sadly, sold out. In that review, I discussed the cancellation of the 2006 Bolivian Cup of Excellence, due to political foolishness. Gary Howe of Traverse City, MI was kind enough to leave a comment on a follow-up post, pointing me to his blog, where he talks about his recent trip to Bolivia to attend the Cup of Fair Trade event.  He includes a slide-show clip describing the event, featuring his really outstanding photography (wow!).

Gary went to Bolivia with Chris Treter, of Higher Grounds Trading Co., a northern Michigan roaster.  Their web site looks completely unfamiliar to me, yet I know their name well. I swear the last I checked their site, they did not offer online ordering, so they did not end up in my righteous roaster list.  Whether I’m right and things have been updated, or if I just completely missed the boat, they have now been added to the sidebar and interactive roaster map, and are on my “to try” list.

Thanks to Gary for bringing both Higher Grounds and the Cup of Fair Trade event to my attention.  I really would love a report on the winning farms!