Kindred Cafe - High-End Green Bean Coffee House
Fair-trade, organic, fresh-roasted coffees, teas, and exquisite edibles.
Home roasting and brewing supplies, equipment and information.
Supporting socially-conscious stimulant consumption.
Introduction - Information - Gallery - Products - Links
It's About the Quality of the Beans
As with wine, the taste of coffee depends on the quality of the fruit, and the way that fruit is transformed into a beverage. The finest coffee beans grow at high elevations, in the shade of other trees, in an ecologically diverse forest. Unfortunately, large-scale coffee producers have done away with shade-grown coffee, and instead created vast plantations of "sun" coffee. But coffee trees do not grow well row-upon-row in the open sun. It's unnatural for the species; creates unhealthy, vulnerable trees; and an overwhelming dependency on chemical fertilizers and pesticides. These megaplantations simply do not have the natural conditions necessary to create great-tasting coffee. In recent years, the quality of coffee sold on the market has declined dramatically.
Merchants of Green Coffee (our main coffee supplier), in its efforts to secure a reliable supply of high quality coffee, has established a network of like-minded companies, and independent growers throughout Latin America, who supply superior "raw" coffee beans grown and processed under ecologically sustainable conditions.
It's About the Freshness of the Coffee
Procuring high quality coffee beans is a lot like harvesting high quality grapes: they're a crucial ingredient, but by no means guarantee a high-quality end product. Great-tasting coffee also relies on how soon the coffee is brewed after roasting. Fresh roasted coffee, like fresh baked bread, has a very short shelf life. Coffee beans stay fresh for a maximum of five days after roasting, regardless of packaging!
Coffee is the 2nd most popular beverage in the world next to water, yet the overwhelming majority of coffee drinkers have never tasted a truly fresh cup. They don't know that fresh coffee is naturally sweet, and has no bitterness. They don't know that if they drank fresh coffee regularly, they would no sooner add cream and sugar to it than they would to their favourite red wine. Fresh coffee, consumed one to three days after roasting, is dramatically superior in taste to any other coffee. Freshness is the key to enjoying the sweet and many distinctive regional flavours of coffee.
Definition of Freshness
Roasted coffee is fresh, and best, if consumed within:
5 days after roasting
3 hours after grinding
15 minutes after brewing
It's About Raising the Bar
Merchants of Green Coffee delivers superior coffee taste and experience via complete tree-to-cup management of the supply chain: (1) we establish direct access to, are a primary source of, the highest quality fair trade, organic and shade-grown coffee beans on the market; (2) we introduce specialty coffee drinkers to the superior taste of freshly roasted, freshly ground, freshly brewed coffee; and (3) we work to restore consumer access to fresh coffee with technology and in collaboration with the industry.
Sustainable Coffee Program
The Sustainable Coffee Program (SCP) was established by Merchants of Green Coffee in 1999 to facilitate the production and sale of sustainable coffee - a direct link to farmers growing quality coffee. Sustainable coffee is defined as: purchased from the farmer at a fair price, grown organically in a biodiverse ecosystem, and processed with eco-friendly technologies and methods.
MGC has pioneered sustainable coffee certification and is the first and only company with coffee certified under the United Nation's Global Eco-labeling Initiative via the Government of Canada's Environmental Choice Program. SCP coffees are grown and processed on traditional, high elevation coffee farms under a canopy of shade trees, in harmony with nature and people.