Blue Bottle Coffee and Fair Trade
Coffee Snob Chooses Starbucks over Artisanal Blue Bottle!
OK, I must admit, I’m not a coffee snob. If it’s thick as tar and wakes me up, it’s coffee. However, I know others who are. Especially here in San Francisco. I heard a lot of buzz about this “Blue Bottle” place, and although I haven’t yet tasted the elixir myself, I have a heartwarming story to tell. My sister-in-law told me about a recent experience she had at Blue Bottle at the Ferry Building. She asked the barista “Do you have fair trade coffee?” to which the barista reportedly replied in the negatory. So she and two others in line behind her left and went to the nearby national chain that happens to be the world’s largest buyer of fair trade coffee.
Image credit: Banky177 at Flickr under a Creative Commons license.
But I Want to Support the Indie Coffee Shop
Because I enjoy living in a diverse and entrepreneurial economy, I try to support independently owned businesses where possible. So it bothered me that this company which seems to be extremely particular about the beans they roast would not take the next logical step and choose fair trade coffee. So I asked them why. And here’s the heartwarming part. I got the following response from Blue Bottle’s Head Roaster:



