On the way to Broadstairs yesterday (where a seagull shat on me as I took its picture – yes guano is in the shot), mrspao decided that she needed to “EAT NOW”.
I have learnt in the years that we have been together that when mrspao makes a statement as plainly and as effectively as that that we go straight to the nearest purveyor of culinary sustinence (unless its McDonalds – its really McShit), this matters not whether its a bloke called Dibbler selling Sosijis in a Bun or the Savoy Grill. Whatever is closest (except McDs) is where we go.
Yesterday M&S at Westwood Cross had the pleasure of me parting with cash, the food hall readily supplied mrspao with a sarnie and me with some sushi, which we ate on the bench outside.
After a while coffee seemed like a good idea, so we ventured into M&S’s Cafe Revive – where there is a selection of fine cakes, a huge coffee machine and someone to make it for you.
Once we had sat down with our cake and espressos I looked at the napkin, emblazoned proudly and unashamedly was “Cafe Revive only supplies FairTrade coffee”. We looked at each other, looked at the coffee and looked at each other.
To be honest it tasted awfull. Espresso to me is supposed to be bitter and yet smooth, its not supposed to be harsh and rough – sorry but I am not a coffee conoisseur and do not have the words in my vocabulary to fully express myself. My apologies.
Anyway the point I am trying to make, is that I feel for the Sri Lankan tea growers, the Columbian Coffee harvesters etc as they do need to make a living and through the FairTrade system they can and do, do so. But whilst the coffee (and tea for that matter) to be blunt continues to tastes appauling I am not going to drink it.
I also resent being forced to drink it in places like M&S who have made a company policy decision to supply only FairTrade coffee/tea.
What about those of us who want a good cup of coffee? Are we going to be forced to condemmed to not giving a toss about the world at large because we want a good cup of copy and continue to buy coffee from the larger organisations who perform greater quality control and ensure consistency of their product?
I don’t agree that big corporations should have the monopoly on produce, as can be shown that where possible we buy meat from the local butcher, vegetables from local farmers etc etc, these local suppliers produce wonderfull goods and we thoroughly enjoy buying and eating them.
It could be that I have FairTrade coffee wrong, perhaps I have been conditioned to enjoy overly processed coffee that is always consistent and does not taste like creosote. Perhaps coffee is supposed to taste like that, perhaps teabags are supposed to explode in the mug/pot.
But then that does not tally in with local produce being demonstrably better than mass produced supermarket goods. Which is right? I do know that when mrspao and I grew our own veg that it was much better that supermarket bought veg.
Which is right?
Is FairTrade merely a ride on a guilt trip? Why should I buy goods that I consider sub standard?
More importantly though, on the cappuccino cake I had in Cafe Revive there was a coffee bean, wonder if that was FairTrade?
supermum | 02-Sep-06 at 12:38 pm | Permalink
weeell , I always use fairtrade coffee and it is always good. Not topnotch but certainly as good as modt others I have tried. Perhaps they weren’t making it properly – mind you I don’t have espresso, but french press.
Ben | 02-Sep-06 at 12:49 pm | Permalink
It’s not just you – the prominently marked ‘fair trade’ coffee I’ve tried is vile. Of course, it’s possible that there’s fair trade I’ve drunk which is nice, and I just don’t know about it…
mrspao | 02-Sep-06 at 1:03 pm | Permalink
Shudder – that coffee was disgusting.
Adam Sampson | 02-Sep-06 at 3:49 pm | Permalink
The TeaDirect Fairtrade tea the Gulb used to sell was really nice — enough so that I bought a big box for the office — so it’s not all bad. It’s like the UK organic certifications; it’s not related to quality, so invariably there’ll be more and more rubbish out there bearing the Fairtrade mark as it gets more popular.
As typo says, it’s fairly easy to screw up when making coffee, particularly if you’re using beans different from those you’re used to/your equipment was set up for; I’ve had some pretty dire food and drink in shop cafes before, so it may not entirely be the fault of the coffee suppliers…
Chris | 04-Sep-06 at 5:13 am | Permalink
Sounds like you just got some bad coffee. I get Fair Trade (the brand is Peace Coffee, delivered all over the Twin Cities metro area by bicycle) all the time, and it’s excellent. Lots of places to go wrong with coffee – poor storage, etc.
pao | 04-Sep-06 at 9:08 am | Permalink
Having had a nose round, it seems that the FairTrade mark is pretty much an indicator that the producer has not been shafted.
Which is not helpfull for the consumers who want nice, ethical coffee.
Perhaps there should be a quality mark?
jon | 28-Dec-06 at 5:43 pm | Permalink
n.b, our cap. cake has a chocolate ball on it that looks like a coffee bean!
also agree, our espresso is poor at best (imagine having to taste one every morning!), nothing to do with fair trade, we just don’t have very good coffee.