Housekeeping

What might a stroll through the Coffee & Conservation 2011 referrer logs and stats tell us about what coffee readers are interested in ?

Here are the top 10 posts of 2011:

1. Keurig reusable coffee filter for single cup brewers
2. Refilling Keurig K-cups
3. Solofill Reusable coffee filter for Keurig K-Cup brewers
4. McDonald’s coffee in the U.S.
5. What is shade grown coffee?
6. Refilling K-cups, take 2: The My-Kap reusable lid
7. What does a great cup of coffee cost?
8. Coffee growing in China
9. Top 5 indicators of sustainable coffee
10. Trader Joe’s coffee

Okay, so people who come here are obsessed with Keurig brewers, and ways to avoid K-Cups. Not apparent until you click through to the posts is the fact that none of them was actually written in 2011. I’ll take that as a sign that I have a deep bench. Considering more recent history, here are the most popular posts I wrote this past year:

1. Ekobrew: another alternative to K-Cups
2. K-Cups are now recyclable! Not really.
3. Greenwash alert: Nespresso capsule recycling
4. How ”wild” is Ethiopian forest coffee?
5. Coffee growing at home

Hopefully, the cost-conscious, single-serve brewer folks pick up some other worthwhile information while they are here. The following list is what I consider to be the most important or interesting of 2011, the ones I hope people read:

1. 4C Code of Conduct: marginal standards for corporate coffee
2. Cloud forest coffee at Finca El Jaguar
3. How much does eco-certification cost?
4. Folgers owner: not waking up to sustainability
5. What does “organic” really mean?

I have a couple more lists coming up: my annual review of the cost of all the great coffee I drank in 2011, and my favorite coffees of the year and what they told me about my tastes.

Happy New Year!

One of my fellow Audubon Guides bloggers, Laura Kammermeier, has jumped on the sustainable-coffee bandwagon, and has been encouraging her readers, including those of the American Birding Association blog, to do so as well.

If you landed here at Coffee & Conservation from Laura’s efforts, welcome!  There is a lot of information on this site about the complex issue of sustainable coffee production. Here’s a quick guide to some of the areas you might want to start exploring:

• There are quite a few coffee certifications — the gold standard for habitat protection is Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center’s Bird-Friendly certification. Learn more about the various certifications and what they mean in this quick guide to certifications.
• Certifying farms costs money, which many small coffee farmers can’t afford. Here are other top indicators of sustainably-grown coffee.
• What is shade coffee anyway? And what is the problem with sun-grown coffee?
• What birds use shade coffee, and what’s the science behind the importance of shade coffee to these birds? Check out the posts in this category.
• Don’t drink these brands. The vast majority of their coffee is uncertified and not sustainably-grown.

No excuses. Here’s where you can get certified Bird-Friendly coffee. Yes, it costs a little more (why should we expect farmers in the developing world to help preserve biodiversity and not be willing to pay for it?). But even if you have to pay shipping, it’s still very inexpensive — calculate it yourself right here. If you’re a birder, you probably routinely buy optics, field guides, go on bird trips, or even hop in the car to chase a new bird across the state. How can we not afford cup of coffee that won’t doom the birds we love to see?

For more links to background information, click on the User Guide tab at the top of the page.

The highly-caffeinated main tasting panel at Coffee & Conservation wishes you a happy holiday and many excellent, sustainable coffees in the New Year! Standing are Mike, my better half Darrin, and Rick; yours truly is seated with our newest regular panelist Dana on my lap. Honest, I did have a coffee mug in my other hand!