Organic coffee usually has a premium price tag, but why would anyone pay more for organic coffee when there are lower cost coffees available? In today’s blog, we explore a few of the realities behind the organic coffee story.
Why buy organic coffee?
- Organic coffee does not contain pesticides or other nasty chemicals. From the farm through to the final production process including the roasting, no nasty chemicals have been used. Pesticides are generally bad for you, so avoid them if you can.
- Organic coffee reliably tastes fabulous. Pesticides will of course affect the taste of coffee and it’s obviously best not to have those in your coffee. It’s true that there are some fabulous tasting coffees that are not certified organic, and we sell a wide range of great tasting non-certified organic coffees as well as our certified organic range. If it’s not certified organic, then it’s not guaranteed to be pesticide free in the way that organic coffee is.
- Organic farming is better for the planet. If we can grow and harvest fabulous tasting coffee without using pesticides and chemicals, then surely, it’s best to do that. The certification process has a cost, but so does destroying the planet with chemicals.
- Organic coffee does not contain genetically modified ingredients. While the potential for harm from GM foods is a very long debate (which I’m not entertaining here), certified organic coffee does not contain GM ingredients.
I’ve had many conversations about certified organic vs other coffees that are not certified, and it’s not unusual to hear something like the following statement: “ah most coffees are organic or organically grown, but the farmers have not gone through the certification process.”
There are some issues with the above statement. The word “ORGANIC” provides a guarantee that the whole production process from farmer to importer to roaster to retailer has been audited. The product is certified organic – it’s achieved a very specific set of standards, and that specific product is traceable right the way back to the farmer. There is no guarantee unless it’s certified.
In the UK the Soil Association provides that audit process and certifies companies once they have systems and processes in place that comply with the required standards. All products must be traceable back to the farmer. Every bag of organic coffee should have a batch number and date enabling the traceability.
A product cannot contain genetic modification if it’s certified ORGANIC. This is a growing worry for the “organically grown but not certified” theory – this is one of the reasons why the traceability is so important.
With such a long and complex production process, CONTAMINATION is the next issue. With certified organic coffee, the whole process is tightly controlled and the certification does provide a guarantee that the risk of contamination has been assessed, and recognised to be very low.
So far, we have considered the issue of our health, with organic coffee supposedly being more healthy, because we know it’s GM free, and grown without the use of pesticides or other potentially harmful chemicals.
There is also the issue of taste. Why does some coffee just taste totally amazing? No amount of expensive coffee machine equipment can make poor quality coffee taste great. Making coffee from coffee beans that are certified organic means the taste of the coffee is not tainted by any chemicals, so it’s not surprising that it tastes consistently better. Great equipment then helps make the most of the great coffee.
So, why buy ORGANIC coffee? Because certified organic products:
- do not contain pesticides or chemicals.
- do not contain genetically modified ingredients.
- have a very low risk of contamination with any other products/ingredients.
- Have been produced, stored, transported from farms and then roasted and packed in factories where the whole production process is very tightly controlled.
It’s totally down to individual choice, if you think the extra cost of organic products is worth it. But for those who do think organic is a good thing, at least they know the processes are tightly controlled and audited.
Browse our range of organic coffees here – be sure to select the “organic” filter to show only our organic product range.
Many, but not all the products on offer for sale At GetMeCoffee Ltd are organic. We encourage all customers to look for the Soil Association logo on product labels when looking for products and especially when comparing prices.
