Fair Grounds - Peace Coffee

Summer's Winding Down But We Aren't
Ecotouring Nicaragua With USFT by Melanee Meegan, Peace Coffee Marketing Manager
Team Los Guapos Wins at Roaster's Retreat by Agent Chiapas
Meet Our New Events Coordinator!
Going the Distance by Tom Hudson
Roaster's Corner: Love Your Coffee by Agent Chet Desmond
Show Your Peace Coffee Pride and WIN!
Quote of the Month
Past Issues of Fair Grounds

Summer may be coming to a close, but we're still pretty busy here at Peace Coffee. Mel gives us an account of her recent trip to Nicaragua with United Students for Fair Trade. We have a new Events & Outreach Corner, Liz Wawrzonek, who you'll meet in this month's edition of Fair Grounds. Agent Chiapas tells us about Team Guapo's great finish at the annual Roaster's Guild Retreat team competition (the Yeti made an appearance too!). We've also got some great photos from biodiesel van driver Tom Hudson's recent 80-mile roundtrip bike delivery, two Peace Pride winners plus a new Roaster's Corner and recipe. Kick back with a mug of your favorite Peace Coffee and read on...

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by Melanee Meegan, Peace Coffee Marketing Manager

It's been five years since I visited Nicaragua. The last time I went, Peace Coffee wasn't yet buying any Nicaraguan coffee, although our green buying coop, Cooperative Coffees, was. This trip was not strictly an annual Peace Coffee farmer vist. Instead, I was representing Cooperative Coffees to talk with United Students for Fair Trade (USFT) about all the ways 100% Fair Trade companies can partner with them to achieve their goals of supporting Fair Trade, encouraging ethical business and bringing more Fair Trade products and education to high schools, colleges, technical schools and universities across the United States.

The express bus dropped me on the main road from Managua to Matagalpa right around noon. I made my way to the Hotel Fuente Azul (Blue Waterfall), dropped my stuff off and headed to the offices of CECOCAFEN, the coop from which Peace Coffee purchases all of its Nicaraguan coffee. CECOCAFEN is a second level coffee cooperative, housed under the umbrella organization Café Nica. It is made up of 11 smaller cooperatives, which represent 1,900 small-scale coffee farmers in the north of Nicaragua. They have grown quite a lot in the past five years, adding a foundation that deals exclusively with social programs to serve their farmers, increasing the number of quality control stations throughout the region. There's also the amazing Fair Trade Coffee Tourism Project, a program that has flourished within the coop and has extended to new communities. Two years ago, Peace Coffee hosted a group of grocery buyers, café employees and some of our staff on a coffee tour to the El Roblar community. This time, I went to the community of La Pita. The USFT students were already in La Pita when I arrived with David Funkhouser, the Strategic Outreach Coordinator for Transfair USA, the third party US Fair Trade certifier.

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As part of the Roaster's Guild Retreat there's a team competition each year. Participants are divided up into teams of eight based on number of years experience in the industry. This year, there were sixteen teams in all. On Friday morning, we were each given 14 lbs of green beans of three different coffees. All we knew was that one was Guatemalan, one was Ethiopian and the third was Costa Rican. We were given until 4 PM the next day to come up a roast to be cupped and judged for each of the coffees.

Our team won first place with the Ethiopian (which scored the highest of all the coffees), the second place Guatemalan, and either the fourth or fifth place Costa Rican. As a result of winning, Probat Burns generously donated a Probatino Table Roaster to any organization of our choice.

I immediately thought that no one would know better who to send it to than Monika Firl, Cooperative Coffees Producer Relations Manager. She recommended the cooperative Maya Vinic in Chiapas, Mexico. This is the same coop that Nate Stevens, our former Customer Accounts Representative, recently visited. If you didn't get a chance to read it last month, I would highly recommend reading Nate's article.

In other Roaster's Guild news, the Yeti ruled the croquet court and made some mysterious appearances in the evening.

Look for a more detailed account of the entire journey at the Roaster's Guild in our next newsletter!

- Agent Chiapas

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Hello Peace Coffee Lovers! I'm Liz Wawrzonek, the new Events & Outreach Coordinator. My first month at Peace Coffee has been a steep launch into the history of the company, the world of fair trade, and the web of organizations and individuals who we connect with around organic food, local agriculture, sustainable energy practices, community involvement, and bike activism/activity. Oh yeah, and I'm learning how best to bring mass amounts of fairly-traded caffeinated goodness out into the community. You might have seen me testing my outreach, advocacy, and coffee serving legs at the Birchwood Café, the Linden Hills Co-Op, Run for Oromia at Lake Calhoun, Valley Natural Foods, and the Mississippi River Challenge at Fort Snelling. Peace Coffee aims to be everywhere you are, and I've jumped in to a full calendar of summer festivals and events to keep up with you busy folks!

Before joining the Peace team, I worked in community arts programming with Red Hot Art and Cinema & Civics in Stevens Square, as a barista and booked a monthly music series at Acadia Café, and did various event planning and community organizing projects with Metropolitan Regional Arts Council and Minnesota Citizens for the Arts. This experience bringing folks together around arts and music programming comes in handy planning events for Peace Coffee. Perhaps my improvisational instincts as a dancer don't hurt either!

It's been great meeting some of you and joining this company and its community. For that matter, to be working for a company that has its own distinct community. One of the most exciting activities on my agenda is building programming with the brand new Common Roots Café, where we have held events on the Dominican Republic, and Ethiopia/Oromia. Upcoming programs in this series include a formal cupping (similar to a wine tasting, but for coffee) on September 13th and a presentation on Mexican farmers and the effects of NAFTA with Monika Firl, Producer Relations Manager for Cooperative Coffees on October 18th (one of several events to celebrate Fair Trade Month!). Send me your email address at liz@peacecoffee.com and I'll make sure you receive details about these and other future events.

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Tom Hudson is usually behind the wheel of our biodiesel van delivering coffee to our accounts around the metro area. But last Friday was different. He hauled the coffee his usual 40 miles (80 miles round trip) out to Stillwater/Hudson area—by BIKE! He couldn't have picked a better day to do it. The weather was incredible and the scenery was beautiful. Check out Tom's photos from his van-free delivery day:




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We had two great Peace Pride entrants this month, so you're both winners!

First, the Cedarleaf Family enjoyed our coffee again this summer. It really brought everyone together (see the photo left).

Second, believing that sometimes the worst poetry can actually be the best poetry, Gretchen Beerline of Powell, Wyoming sent us this (clean!) limerick to show her adoration for Peace Coffee. She thanks the Peace Crew for supporting Mexican and Central American coffee growers at a grass root level. Here's her limerick:

Peace coffee's my new favorite brand.
Their ethos of Fair Trade is grand!
They delivery by bike;
All the blends people like.
Peace Coffee's the best in the land!

Congratulations, Gretchen and Cedarleaf family, you're our Peace Pride winners this month! You both win a pound of your favorite Peace Coffee.

If you're passionate about Peace Coffee, show it! Send us:

— a photo showing your "Peace Coffee Pride”

— a short written testimonial about how much you love us

— an original coffee poem or haiku (three lines, 5 syllables in the first, 7 in the second, 5 in the last)

Each month, we’ll choose one entry to appear in the following Fair Grounds newsletter. If we choose yours, you’ll win a pound of your favorite Peace Coffee coffee. Please send your entry to mel@peacecoffee.com.

Contest ends: September 10th

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"I believe humans get a lot done, not because we're smart, but because we have thumbs so we can make coffee."

~ Flash Rosenberg

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Fair Grounds is produced by:
Peace Coffee

Contact Information:

Orders and General Information
Phone - 612.870.3440 or 1.888.324.7872
Fax - 612-677-3989
E-Mail - info@peacecoffee.com
Web - http://www.peacecoffee.com

Peace Coffee Crew*:
Stacy Adrianson
Anna Canning
Derek De La Paz
Kyle Feldman
Tom Hudson
Andy Lambert
Josh Lavelle
Melanee Meegan
Joe Moskowitz
Natalie Ryno
Ryan Seibold
Megan Tardiff
Keith Tomlinson
Lee Wallace
Liz Wawrzonek

*We work together to get the coffee out to our customers. Although we have specific job titles, we all take turns switching roles and putting in time where it's needed most.

Fair Grounds is designed by:

Starstruck Design
335 West Gill Road
Gill, MA 01354

Contact Information:
Don Kruger
Lynn Nichols
Phone - 413.863.7752
Fax - 413-863-7752
Web - http://www.starstruckdesign.com

You are receiving your Fair Grounds e-newsletter because you told us you wanted to get it, or a good friend of yours suggested to us that you would like to get it. If you like it, let us know. If you want to suggest ways that we can make it better, let us know. Our e-mail is info@peacecoffee.com

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