Organic, Carbon-Free Holiday Coffee Cheaper Than Starbucks

Why buy coffee grown with pesticides, herbicides, and chemical fertilizers when you can get organic, fair trade, shade-grown, carbon offset coffee for less money?

I was driving home from Thanksgiving when I stopped at a service area off I-95 in Maryland for coffee. Starbucks gives you a free cup of drip coffee with the purchase of a pound of coffee beans & I was nearly out of coffee at home, so I grabbed a bag of Christmas Blend without looking at the price. As the cashier handed my reusable mug back over the counter, I gulped at the price - $16 (with the suggested retail price of $15 covered by a $16 price tag - I guess the service area gouge).

When I got home, I figured it was past time for me to restock my cabinet with coffee from Grounds for Change. Turns out their Holiday Blend is only $13.95 a pound. Yes, shipping is extra, but if you order 5 pounds, including shipping it's just $12.78 a pound.

Not only does Grounds for Change work to reduce or offset its impact at each step of the coffee growing and production process, it's extremely delicious. While I haven't tried the Holiday yet, I know their Sumatra has a great taste without being over-roasted like Starbucks, which can be “burnt and bitter enough to make your eyes water instead of open" as Consumer Reports memorably put it.

Zero Carbon Coffee?

We may have a new heavyweight champion for most tree-huggiest company of all time.

Grounds for Change already sells organic, fair-trade, shade-grown coffee roasted using 100 percent renewable electricity. They also donate one percent of sales to environmental organizations.

And now they're offsetting 100 percent of their emissions with CarbonFund.org. I mean, I don't think it could be any greener if each bean was hand-raised by Al Gore.

Check out their "comprehensive 'crop to cup' analysis" of their carbon footprint:

1. Organic cultivation of coffee plant
2. Non-mechanized harvest of coffee cherries
3. Pulping and washing of cherries (to extract beans)
4. Sun drying of coffee beans
5. Transport of beans to dry mill for hulling
6. Burlap bags used to contain finished green coffee
7. Transport to port city in country of origin
8. Ocean transport from origin to US west coast ports
9. Warehousing in US port cities
10. Transport to Grounds for Change roastery
11. All energy used in roasting processes
12. All energy used in operations and business travel
13. Coffee packaging materials, labels and shipping boxes
14. Transport of finished coffee to customer
15. Customer disposal of empty coffee bag

What, they're not offsetting my half and half too? Greenwashers! (I kid.)

Grounds for Change also offers blends from Cafe Femenino Mexico, which "is a new origin for this special project that empowers women coffee farmers by involving them in every step of the coffee production process."

The Green Miles ordered a pound of the Sumatran and a pound of the El Salvador. The shipping is a bit steep, starting at $6.20. But the pound bags are $1.50 off right now, so that makes up for it nicely.

My current favorite coffees are the Starbucks Organic Sumatra-Peru Blend and the Sulawesi from Central Coffee Roasters. I'll let you know how the Grounds for Change coffees stack up!