Organic Beans?

[lukas]

Hi everybody!

I have a question which bothers me since I care about good coffee. A local roaster once told me it is nearly impossible to get high amounts of fair-traded and/or organic beans that are of a high quality.
I think that's pretty mad, so I today went to the local "SuperBioMarkt", a supermarket here which has only organic stuff, and bought some "Demeter" coffee - Fair traded and organic grown from Mexico. The smell was rather promising.
But, as I expected, they really were not that fresh, and the coffee tasted in my French press, well, like good coffee you can buy pre-roasted in a supermarket.

So, back to the question, is it at all possible to get high-quality coffee that is fair-traded, organic _and_ well roasted _and not_ preground? Seems quite illusory to me, sadly.

[ivdp]

Turnover of these types of coffee is relatively small, so to get reaslly freshly roasted coffee might be a problem.
Consider roasting it your yourselves. there are enough green bean sources around with good organic coffees.

Ivo

[tisri]

You may be able to find a local roastery that does organic. There's one in the UK that has a few organic beans to choose from - www.realcoffee.co.uk - and I believe they roast twice weekly and your beans will be in the post within a couple of days of roasting. I imagine they would ship to Germany (you'd have to ask them to be sure) but obviously you'd need to check the shipping charges.