The Vancouver Indy Coffee Scene

Hey thanks for sticking around, I have finished my second semester of New Media and design BCIT and it was one toughest hardest school semesters I have ever completed. It was an incredible amount of work and I survived.

BlackGold the Documentary

Recovering from the semester I decided to head down to my local video store Black Dog video and rented the documentary Black Gold. It follows the daily life of Tadesse Meskela who is the manager for the Oromia Coffee Farmers’ Co-operative Union in Ethiopia. It also shows the effect that the world coffee market is having on the lives of the coffee growers in the developing nations

I heard this documentary was good, and I had read a review in the Georgia Straight went it was released into the theatres but never got a chance to see it. I knew purchasing fair trade coffee gave me some good karma points and helped the farmers live a more sustainable life, but I had no idea how much it really the daily lives. Remember when you got a extra job or did some overtime to pay for that vacation or new ipod? Well these people just want to being able to feed and cloth their children. . . . This film just really put it into context for me.

I have read other reviews that say Black Gold doesn’t provide any real solutions to the problem. Well I beg to differ and I am going to do something about it too. I have started a new page of this blog, which will give a list fair trade coffee which shops serve them and who the roaster is.

Update: I have decided to take down my Fair Trade Coffee page as it never was fully realized what I wanted to be and I their is so much confusion on what fair trade actually is. I want this site to be a creditable source of information and have yet to fully investigate the fair trade practices. Thanks ~ Robert Dall.