Hot Beverages That Are Good for
the Earth
Shade-grown coffee. Fair-traded tea. Hot cocoa from all-natural
ingredients, chai that's certified organic. Bottoms up, thirsty
environmentalist. It's never been easier to find a hot drink
that's good both for the palate and the planet. And you don't
have to search the world over to find it. Just peruse the menu
board at the ubiquitous cafe around the corner--and increasingly
the teahouse--for proof that steamy eco-drinks are entering the
great mainstream one order at a time.
Changes for the better are most visible in the booming industry
in coffee, which, after oil, is the world's largest legal
export. Once plucked from trees that grew in the shade of taller
fruit and hardwood trees, the beans ground for our morning java
jolt today come largely from deforested acres of monoculture.
Grown in open fields in full sun, coffee trees have doubled
their yield, but at a high cost to the environment (see "Singing
for Songbirds," In Briefs, July/August 2000).
To steer consumers to Earth-friendly coffee, Rainforest
Alliance, a nonprofit group based in New York City, has
introduced the ECO-O.K. certifying program. To earn the ECO-O.K.
seal of approval, plantations must grow coffee in shade forests,
use few agro chemicals, protect ecosystems, and manage wastes in
an environmentally sensitive manner. The
best coffee eco-wise is both organic and shade-grown. And you'll
find it in coffee that's certified "bird-friendly." A project of
the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center (SMBC), the pro-bird
labeling program requires that coffee pass muster with an
independent organic certifier, and that the farm where it's
grown meet SMBC's stringent guidelines for the kind of shade
tree management that supports bird populations. Companies that
offer bird-friendly coffee, such as Sustainable Harvest, are
listed on SMBC's web page (web2.si.edu/smbc). Other good-Earth
coffees, such as Thanksgiving Coffee and Alterra Coffee, are
those certified by both ECO-O.K. and an independent organic
labeling program. A group called TransFair, which encourages
equitable trading practices, also certifies coffee, and
companies like Equal Exchange market a fairly traded product.
Even Starbucks, the world's largest gourmet coffee chain, last
year agreed to purchase a small volume of coffee that is
certified as both shade-grown and organic. If you want to lose
the coffee altogether (but not its flavor), there's Soyfee's
Choice, made in six varieties completely from organic soybeans.
A Good Cup of Tea
Tea, next to water the most widely consumed drink in the world,
has undergone a similar makeover. It's coming at the hands of
progressive tea companies that are turning away from a
long-standing industrial approach to growing tea, with its
reliance on chemical fertilizers, pest- and insecticides. "The
typical way of growing tea is non-sustainable," says Mathias
Leitner, coordinator of operations for Nur Natur, an organic tea
and coffee supplier headquartered in Germany. "It leads to soil
erosion and disease, and the pesticides are a health hazard for
the workers who handle them."
Nur Natur offers organically grown teas, certified by a third
party. An independent lab also tests them for over 200 possible
chemical residues. Another Germany company, Gepa3 (translated:
Society for the Promotion of a Partnership with the Third World)
blazed the organic tea trail, selling its first organic tea in
1986. Both companies have a strong social ethic, abiding by
"fair trade" agreements that guarantee workers are paid a living
wage. Gepa offers workers health and childcare, youth and adult
education, vocational training, housing assistance, cultural
programs and community development activities, as well as a fair
price for their tea. "Conventional tea trade lacks integrity,
pays tea workers poor wages, uses chemicals that are bad for the
environment," says Leitner. "It's just not sustainable.
Fair-traded tea benefits everyone."
Tea certainly benefits its consumers, according to medical
studies. In the last decade, tea's been found to ward off heart
disease, cancer and stroke, and improve oral health, among other
things. "I'd certainly recommend that people drink tea," says
Joe Vinson, a professor of chemistry at the University of
Scranton in Pennsylvania, whose studies show that drinking tea
is good for the heart. "Our bodies need more antioxidants [to
fight marauding free radicals that corrupt cells and, it's
thought, lead to cancers], and compared to other foods, tea's
very high in them."
A new trend in tea--chai, a black tea that's spiked with spices
and sugar and often served with cream or milk--is actually a
centuries-old staple of India. Chai first gained a toehold in
this country back in the 1960s in--where else?--the Berkeley
area. In the last five years, a handful of companies have taken
it national; today, it's racking up annual sales in the $20
million range. "It's a healthy, pleasant alternative to coffee,"
says Taylor Peck, president of Nub Circus, producer of Nub Chai,
"It's easier on the stomach than coffee, and the mix of herbs in
chai, like ginger and licorice root, are good for the body."
Increasingly, chai's proving good for the Earth, too.
Ingredients in Nub Chai, from tea to its spice blend, are
certified organic, the first chai company to green-up its drink.
Nub Chai's competitors, which include Oregon Chai, Tazo
[recently bought by Starbucks], and Mountain Chai [now of
Celestial Seasonings], have followed suit.
Not to be outdone, that perennial favorite of kids and parents
alike, hot chocolate has also gone high green. The best cocoa
for the environment is plucked from trees that grow in a shady,
biodiverse environment. Most chocolate on grocery store shelves
and in baked goods isn't. It comes from full- or partial-sun
monocultures on deforested rainforest lands. The result has been
the loss of yet more rainforest, and, since migratory birds live
in canopies surrounding cocoa plants, loss of their habitat,
says SMBC's Rice.
As with coffee, a handful of producers have launched a good
cocoa movement. One of them, the Organic Commodity Project,
offers a line of certified organic chocolates that are sold to
cocoa makers. Another, Country Choice, produces a cocoa mix
that's certified organic. Proof that, for the environment, what
tastes good, can actually be good. CONTACT: Alterra Coffee,
(414)273-3747, www.alterracoffee.com; Country Choice Naturals,
(952)829-8824, www.countrychoicenaturals.com; Elan Organic
Coffees, (619)235-0392, www. elanorganic.com; Gepa, (no phone),
www.gepa3.com; NubChai, (888)NUB-CHAI, nub.ultimanet.com; Nur
Natur, (800)690-9877, www.nurnatur.com; The Organic Commodity
Project, (617)661-1100, www.occhocolate.com; Soy Coffee
Roasters, (877)883-9509, Sustainable Harvest, (510)652-2100,
www. sustainableharvest.com; Thanksgiving Coffee Company,
(800)648-6491, www. thanksgivingcoffee.com. |
