Shade Coffee is for the Birds

(Click on image to enlarge)

George recently began purchasing his coffee from a great company called Grounds for Change.  He had been looking for a company that sells shade grown coffee and almost all of this company's coffee is shade grown.  Why is shade grown important you might ask?  Well, the short answer is that shade grown coffee provides a "forest-like" environment that is great for not only birds, but the whole ecosystem.  Coffee was traditionally a shade grown crop but through the centuries we have converted it to a sun crop that is grown in large monocultures which are essentially deserts for wildlife (imagine acres and acres of corn fields - except that it is coffee).   So if everyone decided to purchase shade coffee instead of sun coffee we would have a lot more forest and a lot less monoculture desert. (Read more about it here.)

Grounds for Change is also organic and uses 100% renewable energy and composts all of their waste.  You can learn more about their sustainable business practices here.  And don't worry they sell everything from regular to decaf.  George has been buying Cafe Femenino which helps women coffee producers in Peru.  (FYI - George and I are not affiliated in any way with this company).

Whether or not you choose this company or another, I encourage every coffee drinker out there to try and choose organic, shade grown coffee.  This is such a small, easy change: just imagine if we all switched what a difference it would make!

"Be the change you want to see in the world." - Ghandi

(I made those coffee mugs for George for Christmas by using some of the Zen Birds images and uploading them to Snapfish.  It makes me happy to see him using them everyday.)