It's an article on "Direct Trade" coffee, the method of importation favored by Intelligentsia, Stumptown, and George Howell, and other top-tier coffee roasters.
This process still amazes me -- the coffee buyers from these fairly small businesses travel around the entire world, from Guatemala to Indonesia to Rwanda, doing what it takes to ensure quality product, which often involves stuff like donating bikes to rural African farm workers. It also results in top-tier farmers making far more money for their product than on the coffee commodity market, even for Fair Trade-labeled product.
It seems seldom today that capitalistic interest dovetails so squarely with development and humanitarianism: although this was not always the case, it's refreshing to see things going the right way sometimes.
Man I am such a sucker for coffee. Fuck. I'm going to go drink like eight cups right now.
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