Coffee news and miscellany

Coffee news and miscellany

The Annual Year in Beans summary

2014mugshotAnnual recap of how much we spend on coffee in a year

Here we are on our 6th year of standardized tracking of how much the two-person Coffee & Conservation household spends on coffee. We keep track of each bag we buy, including shipping, since we purchase the majority of our coffee online. As we’ve noted, we never buy cheap, fast-food, commodity, or mystery coffee. If we don’t know where it comes from, we don’t drink it. Usually, most have eco-certifications.

I’ll cut to the case. In 2014, we bought 61 bags (54 pounds) of coffee and spent $0.46 per six-ounce cup, which includes shipping. We spent a little over $1000 on coffee (also including shipping), and the average price per pound was $19.13.

Our six-year costs are shown in the graphic below.

Over the six years our average price per pound is $19.89 and our average price per cup is $0.48.

2014-summary-costsLast year we wanted to prove that you could buy only certified coffee for reasonable prices, and indeed our year’s supply came out to $0.44 per six-ounce cup. This year, 89% of the coffee was certified, with all but one bag of non-certifed coffee being purchased in the last six weeks. The price of coffee has climbed a bit higher this year, and the availability of certified coffee — particularly organic coffee — has started to decline a little. I think this is likely due to the impacts of the coffee leaf rust fungus crisis; production has been decreasing which can lead to higher prices, and in an effort to combat the fungus some farmers have resorted to non-organic methods and have to give up their certification.

These carefully calculated, long-term results are so consistent, I think my point has been proven: it’s a myth that environmentally-friendly, sustainably-grown coffee is “too expensive.” (Of course, the willingness of people to buy the insanely expensive, poor quality, environmentally destructive K-Cups also proves that high cost is just an excuse when it comes to buying sustainable coffee.) At any rate, the results have been so boringly uniform that I was going to discontinue this exercise…although I am curious how the effects of coffee rust will continue to impact the market. If you think I should carry on for at least one more year, let me know in the comments.

Meanwhile, don’t forget that you can calculate how much a cup of coffee costs, based on the price of a bag of beans, using the spreadsheet below.

Posts summarizing previous years are listed here:

  • 2013 (the year of all certified coffee)
  • 2012 (includes comparison to the high price of K-Cups)
  • 2011
  • 2010
  • 2009

Happy New Year from Coffee & Conservation.

Coffee news and miscellany

My year in beans: 2013 — all certified coffees

nuthatch-mugAnnual recap of how much we spend on coffee in a year

Here we are on year five of standardized tracking of how much the two-person Coffee & Conservation household spends on coffee. We keep track of each bag we buy, including shipping, since we purchase the majority of our coffee online.

Of course, we never buy cheap, fast-food, commodity, or mystery coffee. If we don’t know where it comes from, we don’t drink it. Usually, most have eco-certifications, but since we have a lot of knowledge on how to research the source of each coffee and gauge sustainability, we have traditionally purchased other coffees that we know are sustainably-grown, but did not carry certification.

Most consumers won’t go through this process, so for 2013, we decided to buy only certified coffees: organic, Rainforest Alliance, Smithsonian Bird-Friendly, or some combination. I confess, a few bags were from farms we knew or discovered did have certification, but were not sold as such.

Of our 79 bags, around 15 were duplicates, sometimes the same farm from different roasters. Sixty-two bags of coffee were certified organic, and 28 were certified Rainforest Alliance; 11 had both certifications. Five were also Bird-Friendly certified (of which organic certification is required).

Despite buying exclusively eco-certified, specialty coffee this year, we paid the lowest price per cup in our five-year tracking history. Let us now put a fork in the myth, once and for all, that high-quality, sustainably-grown coffee “costs too much.”

Here are all the 2013 stats:

  • 79 bags of coffee totaling 65.5 pounds.
  • Total retail price for the coffee only = $1109. This year, we moved to a more coffee-friendly community, so we were able to buy more coffee locally and spend less on shipping, just $74. Our previous 5-year average for shipping was $127.  Our grand total was $1183 for the year.
  • Cost per six-ounce cup: only $0.44 ($0.41 without shipping), calculated using the common industry standard of 11 grams of coffee beans by weight per 6 fluid ounces of water.
  • The average price per pound including shipping this year was $18.08, or $16.95 excluding shipping.

Previous results

The five-year average is 63 pounds of coffee a year at an average of $20.04/lb, and $0.49 per 6-oz cup, including shipping.

year-in-beans-graph

We are not very typical consumers in two cost-inflating ways: 1) We buy most of our coffee online and do not buy more than we can drink in under two weeks, incurring high shipping costs; and 2) we buy from an average of over 20 different roasters each year, in order to try a variety of coffees, nearly always single origin farms and frequently higher priced microlots. Had we only repeatedly purchased our favorite locally-available coffees, our estimated cost for the year would have been around $900 total, and $0.34 a cup.

Certifications / Coffee and the environment / Coffee news and miscellany / Organic coffee

A rusty nail in the coffin of organic-certified coffee?

Coffee leaf rust (Hemileia vastatrix) is a highly contagious fungal disease that is devastating coffee production in Latin America, with losses estimated at 15 to 70%, depending on the region. One essential component to combating this disease is the use of fungicides. Copper-based fungicides are relatively inexpensive and are permitted under organic certification. However, they must be reapplied frequently (around every three weeks, or more often if it rains and gets washed off) and are not without ecological risk. If used frequently or in excessive amounts, copper can build up in soils and can also be harmful to aquatic organisms. Some types of synthetic fungicides*, not allowable under organic certification,  can be more effective — and in some circumstances may actually be safer for the environment.

Some of the best reporting on the coffee rust crisis is from Michael Sheridan writing at CRS Coffeelands. As I was contemplating writing this post on the connection between coffee leaf rust and organic certification, Michael hit on the topic himself.  He notes that farm management [use of shade, planting density, pruning, proper timing of fungicide applications] has as much or more to do with crop losses from rust as does whether the farmer uses organic or conventional production; this was echoed in survey results gathered by Green Mountain Coffee Roasters. The severity of this disease is also very dependent on climate and weather factors such as wind, moisture, and temperature. Still, Michael notes that the “official response to coffee rust in Central America so far seems to have been heavily skewed toward agrochemical-intensive approaches”.

For example, at a recent coffee rust summit, a representative from PROMECAFE, a Central American coordinator for coffee-related technical training, suggested that in the short term, organic farmers might consider leaving organic for conventional production.

nailCRS Coffeelands quotes Miguel Medina of the Guatamalan national coffee organization Anacafé as saying, ”I don’t know how organic coffee can have a future.  There is nothing that works to control rust in the field and I am not seeing anyone in the market offering more to create additional incentives for organic farmers.”

Despite a strong commitment by farmers in many Latin American countries to preserve their environment and even a suspicion by a few that chemical companies may be behind the rust epidemic, many farmers may feel compelled to give up their organic certification to fight the rust. With the severity of this threat to their livelihoods — and even survival — the choice between trying to salvage their coffee trees with artificial fungicides or stick with organic certification is straightforward. Many will do what they can to keep afloat and give up organic certification. This not only allows them to use more potent artificial fungicides to try to control the coffee leaf rust, but it also frees them to use pesticides and artificial fertilizers that may be considered necessary to protect or help vulnerable or ailing coffee trees.

Over the past few years, some farmers have already abandoned organic certification because the extra money they receive for it simply does not compensate them for the added expense of producing coffee this way. The rust crisis adds to this dilemma. Eventually, coffee fields are likely to be replanted with rust-resistant varieties, but even those in the ground today will take three to five years to produce a crop. Meanwhile, we as consumers need to brace ourselves for higher coffee prices as crop yields decline, and be that much more willing to pay extra for organic coffee.

More reading on the topic:

*Some media mention “Triazaline” as the synthetic fungicide used for coffee leaf rust control. From what I can tell, there is no fungicide named triazaline. However, there is a group of synthetic fungicides called triazoles that are used. Triazaline may be a brand name in this family, or a misinterpretation/misspelling of triazole.

Update (January 2025): A study has now confirmed the toxicity of triazoles to humans using these fungicides to combat coffee rust.

Rusty nail photo by Scott Robinson under a Creative Commons license.

Coffee news and miscellany

Sips: Coffee rust crisis

320px-Hemileia_vastatrix_-_coffee_leaf_rust

Wikipedia

A round-up of the many stories and news items about the devastating impact of the fungus Hemileia vastatrix (coffee rust, roya). Central and South America are experiencing the worst outbreak in decades.

This crisis has some serious consequences beyond the obvious impacts of increasing consumer prices and endangering the survival of some producers.

One is a decrease in the number of producers that will stay with organic certification. Most of the fungicides that are used to combat rust are allowed under organic certification. However, coffee plants attacked by rust need substantial boosts in nutrients (because they lose their leaves) in order to keep them alive. These levels are often just too hard to achieve at reasonable prices with available organic fertilizers. Recall that in the last few years, many farmers have already given up on organic certification because the price premium is just not enough to justify the extra cost and labor.