Friday Fun – caption the photo to win a Machu Picchu gift set!

posted at 10:58am, 29 Jan 10 by Siobhan [ 22 comments ]

Yes, its that time of the week again…Friday Fun!

Today we have a photo for you to caption below. Kevin brought Machu Picchu, his favourite coffee, with him on his trip to Peru when he met some of the farmers at COCLA who grow this 100% Fairtrade & organic coffee. He also saw the coffee growing around the Inca trail near the ancient site of Machu Picchu where the Incas lived in close harmony with nature.

We like to call this photo ‘Machu Picchu goes home’. If you can come up with a better caption you might win a prize!

Machu Picchu goes home

The rules are simple:
Think of a creative caption for this photo and  post it to the comment box of this blog post.
You have until 5.30pm today to post your caption.
The winning caption will be chosen and announced on Monday on our blog.
The chosen caption will win a Machu Picchu gift set (of course!) along with some Divine Chocolate covered mangos for you to enjoy with your cuppa! ! (Prizes can only be sent to a UK or Ireland postal address.)

Update:

Some of you maybe have seen the news headlines about landslides in the Cusco area of Peru.  We work with farmers in the local area whose coffee goes into our Machu Picchu products.  We’re currently getting in touch with them to get an update from the ground and will post any news when we receive it.

We’ve come a long way since Campaign Coffee!!

posted at 1:28pm, 25 Jan 10 by Alex [ 5 comments ]

Last Saturday I was lucky enough to be able to attend a conference organised by the London Fairtrade Diocese Campaign, and hosted by St Stephen’s church in West London. It was a full programme with the theme of Transforming Lives through Fairtrade, and featured some high profile speakers from the Fairtrade Movement as well as John Bell, a very well respected member of the Iona Community, who’s written hymns and books, contributes regularly to BBC Radio 4’s Thought For The Day and has an amazing knowledge of international music – as I discovered in the afternoon!

John has been involved in the trade justice movement for longer than I have lived – and was reflecting about the early days when he sold ‘campaign coffee’ – renowned more for the ethos than quality!

John Bell at Transforming Lives through Fairtrade conference

He made a very thought provoking speech about Global Trade and Global Warming, where he lamented the way people now only seem to measure the financial impact of items, rather than the wider costs in terms of resource. He feels that we have entered an ‘age of entitlement’ which leads to relentless consumption of resource and questioned if people and the environment are actually able to afford the cheapness that we have come to expect in this modern society where we have instant access to knowledge but not necessarily the wisdom to benefit from it!
He does feel that Fairtrade can help to address some of the negative impacts the developing world that the international markets contribute to, and we heard from Barbara Crowther, Director of Communications and Policy at the Fairtrade Foundation about how the scale of Fairtrade has grown significantly over the 15 years they have existed in the UK, and the challenge they face of balancing the mainstreaming of Fairtrade (Nestle’s KitKat and Starbucks and Cadburys etc) with the importance of supporting pioneering 100% Fairtrade brands like Cafédirect and Divine Chocolate.
After a ‘Working Lunch’ we were energised by Catherine Brogan, a performance poet, who described herself as the ‘next generation of Fairtrade campaigner’ treated us to some lively poetry recitals, rounded off with her latest composition which is the most compelling argument I’ve heard to buy Fairtrade so far – you can read it here, but without a strong Irish accent you’ll struggle to make it rhyme!
The afternoon consisted of hymns from around the world, lead by John Bell, with presentations from leading 100% Fairtrade brands Divine Chocolate and Cafédirect. Sophi Tranchell MBE, Managing Director of Divine Chocolate and Chair of London Fairtrade Campaign presented to us the whirlwind history of Divine Chocolate, and described some of the inspiring impacts they have seen since working with suppliers and shareholders, the Kuapa Kokoo co-operative in Ghana.

I then had 10 minutes to speak about Cafédirect. We have been in business for almost 20 years, and the story of how we were formed is very really genuine and very refreshing, particularly in these days of corporate takeovers and multinational companies creating their own stories of authenticity. You can read more about it here. Cafédirect’s growth in our early days was driven by real grass roots campaigners, who bought our coffee from church halls, Oxfam stores and community centers, and campaigned to supermarkets to stock us. Our first big listing was in 1994 – and the rest is history….
We’ve got a great video ‘I am Cafédirect’, it gives a real taste of the people who spend their time, effort and expertise growing coffee, tea and cocoa that goes into our hot drinks, and did show it on Saturday (available on YouTube too). Cafédirect is all about building communities, both in grower co-operatives in Latin America, Africa and Asia, but also back here in the UK – and Fairtrade Fortnight is a great time to get involved!

Host a Cafedirect Tea Party this Fairtrade Fortnight!

We are currently working hard to create Tea Party Kits that you can all use in your communities over Fairtrade Fortnight, and beyond to get together over a cuppa, bake some cakes using Fairtrade ingredients and have a great time! It’s also an excellent way to demonstrate to the unconverted that some Fairtrade products can be of the highest quality!
We’ll be taking orders for the Tea Party Kits at the beginning of February, but in the meantime you can join our Facebook event and sign up to be a Friend of Cafédirect to find out more…

A BIG thank you to Fran from the London Fairtrade Diocese Campaign Steering Group for organising the big day, traidcraft and Shared Interest for coming along and everybody else for their energy and enthusiasm!!

Friday Fun – What’s in the box?

posted at 11:48am, 22 Jan 10 by Yasmin [ 19 comments ]

What do you do with Christmas presents you don’t want? Whatever you do – don’t throw them away! Even if you don’t love that jumper, bike or kitchen set, there is definitely someone out there who will.

Instead of binning your gifts, you can take them down to your local Oxfam store, put them up on freecycle or even swap them for something you really like at a swishing event.

Gifts can be tricky but when you get it right, it’s amazing. For Friday Fun this week, we want to hear what you would put inside this box (pictured below) and who you would give it to.  The gift could be for someone you know or for a celebrity. 

Harriett with the mystery box...

To enter Friday Fun: Post your gift ideas in the comment box below. As usual, the most creative entry will win so be as inventive as you can! The winner will receive a selection of Tropical Wholefoods goodies and a Cafédirect product of their choice.

To start you off…I would give George Clooney a month’s supply of our award-winning single origin coffees and a cafétiere so he could make excellent tasting coffee the old-fashioned way.

Coffee cupping at Cocla!

posted at 3:31pm, 20 Jan 10 by Cafédirect HQ [ 1 comment ]

Today we are at Cocla, an  important partner of  Cafédirect’s, whose coffee goes into our Machu Picchu range (as well as others). Machu Picchu coffee is grown around the ancient Machu Picchu site. On Monday I walked to one of the farms where this coffee is grown. The farm is situated deep in the forest and we walked along the actual Inca trail to get to the farm – it was truly magical.  Machu Picchu is an amazing site where the Incas lived in close harmony with nature.  The farm is organic and the farmer takes great care to protect the land with many initiatives such as composting and water minimisation. Although now there are water falls and channels every where in this region the farmers are protecting the future.

Today at Cocla, we’re cupping Machu Picchu coffee.  Martin Martinez is the cupper and there is nothing he doesn’t know about coffee quality control.  Cocla receives coffee from  farmers in parchment form (the protective skin around the bean), it then goes through a careful process of removing this skin and quality screening before going on its journey to Cafédirect UK.

Coffee cupping is a very scientific yet theatrical affair so it’s great to see first-hand here at origin. The cupping process involves making many cups of coffee and analysing them for aroma, flavour, body (high body like milk or  low body like water), acidity as well as overall quality and taste. We then score them on these characteristics.

After filling the coffee cups, we break the crust. This releases the first important aroma and the grounds then sink to the bottom of the cup. We’re then  ready to taste the liquor. We look for chocolate and  nutty characteristics in our Machu Picchu coffee.

We then remove the top foam which is discarded and the coffee is ready to taste after a minute of cooling. Tasting involves sipping, slurping, spitting, airating, pushing and shoving (well there are 5 people here!)

Martin says that sometimes when he cups our coffee he decides it needs to rest for a couple of months more before shipping. I  like the idea of our coffee relaxing after a long journey from the high forest before continyuing to the UK!

The rains have started now and I have to get down the mountain to St Theresa before the ever present mudslides.

Bye for now from Kevin and the Peru crew!