Bob -- I'll check on specifics Monday when I'm back at work. This is an odd time in the world of coffee roasting as it's the end of the season, so much of the green has been sitting in a warehouse for quite some time. We're pretty picky about our beans, so tend to let something go OOS rather than settle on dry, flat coffee. Plus, with Vietnam flooding the market with inferior Robusta beans, the price drop has driven many farmers out of business. We're investing heavily in those who grow for us right now, trying to keep them going. In exchange for paying them well above the market price, we're developing a lot of infrastructure for them. Not just pulpers and drying patios, but schools, clinics and even housing. (We even sponsor visits so the farmers in coffee-growing regions can see our facilities and way of life; you haven't
seen happiness till you've seen some Costa Rican farmer try to catch his first snowflake!) In return, we insist they use no pesticides, herbicides, keep their kids in school, etc. Look for more organics in our line over the next several years; it takes a few years of organic practices to earn the right to call a coffee "organic." Will the Frontier line change? Yes, for reasons of both availability and because our standards, i.e., pull your kids out of school to pick and you won't do business with us. Will the Frontier and Green Mountain lines improve? Absolutely! You wouldn't
believe some of the blends we're playing with now! In fact, if you see High Andes Blend on your store shelf, buy it! It just went into production so I'm not sure how long it'll take to distribute, but it's both Organic and Fair Trade...and quite simply one of the best coffees I've ever had.
There's no formaldehyde used to process our caffeinated or Swiss Water Process decaffeinated coffees. In water-rich areas they use water to separate the bean from the cherry, then sunlight or in some cases low-heat dryers to prepare them for the market. In dry regions, like Kenya, they use sunlight and mechanical aggitation to get the beans. In the old days, the wet process was called "washed" and the dry process was called "unwashed," but as you can imagine it was difficult to market unwashed coffee, so now they call it "natural" processing. /w3tcompact/icons/wink.gif
By the way, for those of you looking for coffee with the max buzz power, the darker the roast the less caffeine. So if you use coffee to jump start your day, try a lighter roast.
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