April 04, 2007

• I'm going to find a chocolate bar instead. Poor fishtick.
• Wot? I live in the Far East, not the Middle East! Pffft - "Obviously … we can't get 100 per cent of our food from local sources," he said, admitting that non-locally grown coffee was served at the breakfast. But he added the beans were roasted locally." Surely they could have added some locally peeled bananananas?
• And then, in a stroke of genius, they decided to offset their Caffeine-Jones by paying Third World bean-bickers to not drink an equivalent amount of local coffee, thereby offsetting the carbon costs of shipping the precious beans. Hey, if it's good enough for Al Gore.
• more than 200 people still showed up at the Table vegetarian restaurant in Ottawa's Westboro neighbourhood... The meal was organized by Ottawa Centre NDP MP Paul Dewar, who said it was about supporting local farmers... It would seem he doesn't support local livestock farmers.
• ...and yeah, that coffee exemption kind of ruined the entire concept.
• . . which otherwise is a very good one. *munches energy bar, swigs energy drink*
• Roasting beans locally is silly - it doesn't change the weight for shipping - even possibly increases it - and on the social side, it means that the places where the beans grow get far less money. Green coffee beans sell for very little - a lot of value and cost is added in the roasting. This is why some coffee growing countries like Uganda are trying very hard to get a locally-owned roasting industry going, though they face prejudice in favour of European and other Western roasters. I would preferentially choose African roasted beans if they are available (because I want to support African industries).
• jb, surely you don't expect common sense to enter in this do you? It's mandatory that someone loses money while we pay the loss and profit with our fancy roasted and fresh ground java. There is a specialty coffee shop here that does just that for ridiculous prices. I've avoided it in case the coffee is simply too good to resist.