Fair trade...

[conuly]

For non-essentials like coffee, tea, chocolate, and sugar, I like to buy fair trade as much as possible. It's extremely difficult or impossible to excise slavery/coerced labor from your life entirely, and I don't stress about it if I forget or just can't, but I do make an effort, at least when buying things I can technically live without.

Somehow, this haphazard commitment to justice has resulted in me having a lot of loose tea and coffee beans in my cabinet instead of teabags and ground coffee, but I digress.

My mother really likes chicory coffee. I can get her chicory coffee any day of the week, and because I love her a little more than I love justice and equality and the general idea of humanity I will get her some now and again, but ideally I'd like to minimize the slavery in my French press. I've had no luck finding fair trade chicory coffee. Does anybody have a source? (Alternatively, does anybody know where I can get chicory root to add to the coffee myself? Is that something that comes in slavery-free packaging? Do I even need to worry about this when it comes to chicory? Geez, I have no idea. Almost don't want to know.)

On a related note, Ana likes hazelnut coffee. The ethical issues around her coffee are solved, but does anybody know where I can get hazelnut coffee that's not "artificially flavored"? Not creamer or syrup - just the coffee, thanks.

Note: I like to believe I'm doing the best I can, but the more I find out about slavery in the production chain of everything, the more disheartened I am. If you're feeling tempted to list off other things I use every day, like this computer, that probably were produced with a hefty amount of coerced labor... unless you have an affordable alternative that doesn't mean giving it up altogether, please don't. I'll just feel bad, and you'll feel bad, and we'll all feel bad together.

Edit: I have found chicory! I'll order some and see how Mommy likes it. Hm. I wonder if I should go this route with the hazelnut as well, just... get regular hazelnuts? Back to google....

Comments

[calimac]

It's not possible to be pure. We just do the best we can.

[ranunculus]

Ditto

[conuly]

I suppose I could move to the wilds of wherever and live off the land, but that's a lot easier said than done, and I that's hardly a societal solution. More self-indulgent than anything else.

[calimac]

Particularly since if everybody tried to do that, it would be even harder on the environment than we are already.

[conuly]

In the short run. In the long run, the vultures would have a feast for months and months.

[gwydion]

I wish I knew the solution.

[conuly]

To the coffee or the slavery? Because while I can't singlehandedly fix coercive labor practices, I hope I can fix this coffee issue.

[gwydion]

The Slavery supply chain issue. I'm dead useless when it comes to coffee.

[conuly]

God, don't we all :(

[nightdog_barks]

I don't know how far you really want to go in the chicory quest, but ... you could try growing your own. I mean, it's just an herb that makes pretty blue flowers, and apparently it grows wild in a lot of the United States. I know it was used in the American South during the Civil War as a coffee substitute/supplement because of the Union blockade of the Southern ports. It looks like the seeds for coffee chicory are fairly widely available for order.

[conuly]

Yeah, it actually grows around here all over, but my gardening efforts tend to fail due to lack of ongoing enthusiasm and nobody wants me foraging in their yards once I get to the digging things up part!

[redbird]

I'm used to seeing chicory flowers in unmowed areas in parks, at the edges of roads, that sort of thing—places where it feels reasonable to gather berries, or pick a few dandelion or sorrel leaves, but not to dig up roots.

Besides, you don't want to wait months; "where can I get X wild/edible plant for my kitchen?" is a different question here at the very start of spring than it would be in August.

[jack]

Silly question, do you know, does chicory by itself have the same slavery problems or is the problem that they make unethical coffee with chicory in. If so, can you get chicory only coffee, by itself, or to mix with regular fair trade coffee?

[conuly]

I actually don't know! But chicory is uncommon enough that I think maybe it's just the coffee?

[elainegrey]

I see you found a chicory source, but i thought i'd let you know that chicory is a close relative of dandelions. Dandelion too is used as a coffee substitute/additive with a coffee-like taste. If you have a food-safe yard with dandelions you could manage your own. 8)

[dragonyphoenix]

Ooh, I didn't know dandelion's could be used as a coffee substitute/additive. Cool!

[conuly]

I did know that, actually! The dandelion is the unsung hero of the edible weeds world.

[wpadmirer]

I'm glad people had suggestions. It's so frustrating that buying with a clear conscience often requires a bank account I don't have!

[conuly]

I know omg.

But I guess that's the point of slavery, to keep costs down?

[rebeccmeister]

Maybe look for hazelnut extract for the hazelnut coffee.

I support you in this mission!

[conuly]

That's an idea. Hm.

[siderea]

Also, if Ana takes her hazelnut coffee sweet, hazelnut syrup may be on option. Monin makes an organic hazelnut syrup w/ no artificial flavors, but I don't know if it's fair trade.

ETA: Here's Monin's Social Responsibility page, which disappointingly does not list fair trade, so presumably not. :(

[conuly]

She does! She may be okay with non-fair trade... we do what we can, after all. Or she can continue dumping sugar into her cup like she does.

[wendelah1]

What about these folks? Mail order is okay, I assume?

chicory: https://www.ithacacoffee.com/coffee-and-chicory-fair-trade-organic-12-oz-box

hazelnut: https://www.instacart.com/stop-shop/products/17010655-omar-coffee-organic-fair-trade-hazelnut-fresh-roasted-coffee-10-0-oz

And here's a recipe: https://blog.mountainroseherbs.com/make-roasted-chicory-coffee-recipe

[conuly]

Thanks!

I didn't mention in the post because I didn't want to confuse the issue, but I've worked out that the way to avoid grounds bubbling up into the cup in the french press is to grind the coffee yourself, coarsely. I could use the drip strainer, but inevitably that results in water overflowing, sooooooo....

But I did find a source of roasted, already chopped up chicory!

[wendelah1]

You need whole beans, not ground. The Omar brand (the flavored coffee bean) has a website you can order from where you can specify whole beans or a particular grind. They're based in Connecticut.

Every time I type "Connecticut" I think of this scene in Holiday Inn...oh never mind. Too hard to explain.

[stormkeeper_lovesall]

I buy Fair Trade as often as possible. It's the right thing to do.

Glad you found chicory!

[conuly]

Fingers crossed it's what my mom wants.

[serpentine]

I've had the same problem with hazelnut coffee. Like all of the sudden, you could only find those artificially flavored, which is frustrating. I have gotten myself used to regular coffee. Once I manage to get working again, I'll probably start getting Birds and Beans coffee since it's also birb friendly as well as organic and free trade. I picked up a bag of it from Cornell's Lab of Ornithology's gift shop. It was pretty good.

[conuly]

bird friendly?

[serpentine]

They grow their coffee in bird friendly habitat, i.e. shade grown where they have it in forest like habitat instead of clearing out all the vegetation and make sure that there's places where birds can shelter, have food and do other bird things.

Here's their website: https://birdsandbeans.com/

[conuly]

Ah, like cocoa preferably is.

[lusentoj]

Oh man! I've been looking for chicory for ages because it was WWII coffee replacement so I wanted to try it (I can't drink real coffee and wanted to try making tiramisu); couldn't find it anywhere in Sweden. I totally forgot about it, thanks for reminding me...

In Sweden, organic and fair-trade etc is everywhere and not expensive compared to normal food either. But I'm having a hard time finding it in Japan, probably since in Japan they just care about "local" foods the most.

[conuly]

Is there such a thing as "local" Japanese coffee?

[lusentoj]

I don't drink coffee so I don't know, but in Sweden we had a coffee factory in my town so why not Japan. Where the beans come from I can't say.

[conuly]

Well, once the beans get to Sweden or Japan the odds of slavery go way, way down. The slavery and coercion and low wages come way earlier in the supply chain, on the farms.

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

"Alternatively, does anybody know where I can get chicory root to add to the coffee myself?"

It's a common wild perennial herb; you ought to be able to find it in vacant lots and weedy verges all over the place, but now's not the best time to look for it - it's a summer flower; it blooms the same time as the black-eyed Susans and Queen Anne's lace. No doubt you could grow it in your yard, if your Mom likes it so much.

I haven't roasted chicory root, but I've made roasted dandelion-root 'coffee'. It reminded me of the 'tea' that the Heart of Gold's computer made for Arthur Dent: "almost, but not quite, entirely unlike" coffee. I suppose one could get used to it, if real coffee was no longer available.

[conuly]

The chicory root coffee I'm thinking of is New Orleans style - it's a flavoring added to coffee. Originally the point was to stretch the more expensive product, but now it's done for taste.

I don't particularly want to dig up wild growing chicory if I can help it, though I do know what it looks like and where it grows around here. Happily, I found a source of already roasted root! Roasted and ground and ready to mix in!

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

Already roasted and ground sounds best. Wild chicory would probably be hard to dig up, seeing how it likes hard-packed, sandy soil, and I bet the roots grown in such soil are nothing to write home about.

I too would much rather support the local farmers than grow stuff myself; it's no more expensive in the long run, and they're better at it.

Sheesh, the gardening-and-yardwork season started early this year; here it's only April 1 and I'm already behind. Not that I'll get anything done today, because it's blowing a bit of a gale: lovely, sparkly April showers coming in sideways on a 25 mph wind.

[conuly]

Well, if you don't garden you'll get May Dandelions and nettles. Good for soup!

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

Plenty of dandelions and chickweed up in the yard already, but I haven't done anything with them yet this year. I like wild salad greens, but James is not really a fan. I was thinking to go out to the Dawley Sanctuary and get a mess of nettles today, because they ought to be just about perfect now, but I don't want to be under those old trees when it's blowing like this. Maybe tomorrow, if I get a round tuit.