Wake up and smell the global coffee trade

Just saw Marc and Nick Francis’s wowwee documentary, Black Gold, about the $80 billion global coffee trade and the Ethiopian producers who see less than 1 percent of it. “Your coffee will never taste the same again” is the film’s tagline. Now that’s truth in advertising. No more mocha latte for me, unless those beans are Fair Trade certified, no way. With Fair Trade, growers reap a higher percentage of sales revenues by weeding out middlemen and commodities exchanges.