By www.buyorganiccoffee.org
What Is Premium Coffee?
Coffee farmers make more money from selling premium coffee that for non-premium grades. But what is premium coffee? Premium coffee has to do with the altitude at which the coffee is produced, rainfall, quality of the soil, and general weather conditions. Premium coffee also has to do with coffee processing infrastructure. Premium coffee beans are thoroughly washed. Premium coffee beans are picked at just the right time, properly dried, and processed in a timely manner. What is premium coffee? It is good coffee, grown in the right conditions, cared for by farmers who care, and processed professionally. Sounds like healthy organic coffee? The care and attention that organic coffee producers give their plants, the harvested beans, and the soil in which they grow their coffee, is often just what is needed for premium coffee. What is premium coffee? Your cup of organic coffee is very often premium coffee.
Profits from Premium and Organic Coffee
Coffee growers produce premium coffee because it pays. Similarly growers produce great coffee and go through organic coffee certification because the product that they lovingly produce pays better than regular coffee. Organic coffee, like other premium coffee, differs from regular coffee in several ways. The soil in which organic coffee is grown must have been verified as free from prohibited substances for at least three years. Likewise the soil for growing premium coffee must be cared for and nourished. In addition there must be distinct boundaries between land on which organic coffee is grown and land where pesticides, herbicides, and prohibited chemical fertilizers are used. Although regular but premium coffee may be grown adjacent to other coffees the care and attention given to growing premium coffee often reduces the need for pesticides, herbicides, and synthetic fertilizers. While organic coffee certification includes the adherence to a specific and verifiable plan for all practices and procedures from planting to crop maintenance, to harvest, de-husking, bagging, transport, roasting, packaging, and final transport so does the production of premium coffee require a more organized and demanding process that other coffee production.
What Is Premium Coffee versus What Is Organic Coffee?
Organic coffee certification guarantees that the consumer is drinking organic coffee, coffee uncontaminated by unwanted substances. Organic coffee certification also drives up the cost of a cup of coffee. The problem for a small coffee grower is that some organic practices can be more costly than conventional practices. For example, the labor cost of composting may be more than the cost of buying conventional, albeit prohibited, fertilizers. If the coffee farmer cannot obtain a sufficiently high price for his crop his is unable to continue the sustainable farming practices necessary to produce organic coffee.
