What’s Your Relationship With Your Coffee?

March 11, 2009

Looking to have a great cup of coffee, do your part to help small scale coffee growers and help the environment? Well, Local Coffee + Tea now makes that possible. The Sarasota retailer is now featuring Colombian El Danubio coffee.

Beyond fair trade, El Danubio, is part a what is being called a “Relationship Coffee Program”. This program seeks to promote the production of sustainable coffees by creating a direct relationship between small scale coffee growers and processors. It also attempts to create a bond between processors and the consumer. The result of all this is a means to deliver product from grower to coffee cup that benefits everyone involved (including you, the drinker).

Latitude 23.5 Coffee Roasters, located here in Sarasota, has adopted the entire production of the El Danubio farm in Valle de Cauca, Colombia. Roast Master at Latitude 23.5, Chris Keesecker describes the growing process this way. He says that, “At El Danubio, altitude protects the coffee plants from insects, so no pesticides are used. They mix leaves from banana and orange trees with farm compost and apply to the base of the coffee plants, so no commercial fertilizer is used. They live in harmony with their natural surroundings and are extremely proud of the crops they harvest. That pride comes though in the coffee from El Danubio.”

The production practices at El Danubio are based upon the principles of quality, transparency, commitment and collaboration ensuring the protection of the environment. The Relationship Coffee Program will bring life-changing educational opportunities, health services, and infrastructure improvement to this region. Don Feliciano and his wife Maria Lucy have been farming their five hectares of land in the Colombian Andes for the past ten years.

Local Coffee + Tea is featuring El Danubio and selling bulk packages for brewing at home. You can visit them at any one of their three Sarasota locations to sample some of this outstanding coffee. Now, when you reach for that cup, you’ll know you’re not only going to enjoy something special, but you’ll also be doing the world some good too.

Local Coffee +Tea (Siesta Village)
5138 Ocean Boulevard
941-870-2671
Siesta Key, FL

Local Coffee + Tea ( Selby Botanical Gardens)
811 S Palm Avenue
Sarasota, FL
941-366-5731

Local Coffee + Tea (South Trail)
4615 South Tamiami Trail
Sarasota, FL