Growing exceptional coffee is complex. Growing exceptional organic coffee is nothing short of a miracle.
So why is it so difficult?
Like most plants, coffee is susceptible to multiple diseases that can affect the health and yield of the crop; coffee leaf rust, root rot and coffee berry disease to name a few.
Fungicides and pesticides are used around the world to assist the growth of healthy crops. Growing coffee without these synthetic assistants can prove tricky, and even risky. If a harvest is lost to disease, farmers have nothing to show for their efforts.
What is organic coffee?
Organic coffee: coffee grown without synthetic fertilisers or chemicals.
This begins with the soil coffee plants are grown in, through to pest controls producers use to maintain healthy crops. Organic coffee producers champion natural fertilisers, like compost, alternative food pulp or animal by-products, and plenty of shade, to grow healthy crops. These factors, combined with high altitudes, help bypass the need for chemicals resulting in healthy coffee plants that produce delicious coffee cherries.
Organic coffee is traceable from farm to cup because every stage of its journey is monitored and inspected. This ensures the integrity of any product marketed as organic.
Certifying organic coffee
However, it's not as easy as it may seem. Although many coffees are grown organically and comply with certification standards, very few become certified.
Certification is costly
Producing organic coffee comes with a general increase in operation costs: paying for integrated pest management, hand weeding, pruning of shade trees and acquiring organic fertilisers, to name a few.
On top of these, farmers and co-ops pay out of their own pocket for third-party agents to travel to their farms and assess production standards. These costs can really stretch small farmers. With modest returns for their efforts (only being able to charge a few extra dollars per bag), most choose to invest elsewhere on their farm.
For this reason alone, you'll often find certified organic coffees are linked to larger production companies or co-ops, as opposed to smaller micro-lot farmers.
Certification is complex
In some regions around the world, organic certification criteria extend beyond just growing and processing at origin. For coffee roasters, this can mean intensive cleaning procedures before roasting organic coffee, to ensure there's no crossover with coffee that has come into contact with synthetic chemicals or fertilisers. This may even mean needing a separate roaster for roasting organic coffee.
In these regions, only when roasters pass certification criteria can coffee be marketed and sold as organic in certain regions.
So why should you buy organic coffee?
Without the use of pesticides and fungicides, coffee plants require high altitudes and plenty of shade to grow, slowly ripen and yield healthy fruit. Shade-grown coffee develops slowly, gaining nuanced flavour from the origins soils and altitude. Organic-grown coffee can truly taste exceptional in the cup.
As a bonus, the shade provided by various trees and plants, can often promote stronger biodiversity at origin, leading to healthier plants in the long haul.
Organic coffee at Allpress
The organic coffee we purchase has been verified at origin – we source exceptional flavour from various organic producers.
Our Browns Mill Organic blend features two certified organic coffees; Honduras and Peru. Peru in particular is famous for producing excellent organic coffee. As their coffee is grown at such high altitudes, there's little need for synthetic chemicals and fertilisers since disease and pests don't flourish so high up.
A versatile coffee, our Browns Mill Organic espresso tastes of delicate milk chocolate, toffee, caramel and citrus peel. But made with milk it'll shine with notes of milk chocolate, orange jaffa and hazelnut.
A delicious cup, whichever way you brew.
