Fair Trade, Shade Grown, and Organic

 You might have noticed that some of the coffee even in your local supermarket is now labeled "Fair Trade Certified". Basically, Fair Trade Certification guarantees that the laborers and farmers receive a fair price for their coffee beans, not an artificially low price due to the glut of cheap robusta coffee on the market. Fair Trade coffee growers have greater stability within their families and Fair Trade practices can benefit and strengthen entire communities.

Another increasingly common label on coffee is "shade grown " or "bird friendly" . Modern coffee farms often clear-cut areas of rainforest to plant coffee bushes. Direct sunshine causes the coffee to ripen more quickly, but the habitat devastation can have a considerable impact on the population of birds, insects and other wildlife. Shade grown coffee is grown the traditional way -under a canopy of trees. This keeps more of the habitat intact, and while the coffee takes longer to ripen, it is often considered to be of superior quality.

You might also see coffee labeled "organic " . Organic coffee may also be free trade or shade-grown, but one does not always imply the other. Organic simply means that the coffee was grown in accordance with organic farming practices; essentially, no artificial chemical fertilizers or pesticides were used on the coffee. Organic farming practices are also beneficial to the environment.