SUBJ: Hurry up and Crack

As some of you may have read last week, G has offered a challenge. No Unethical Coffee... and the first one who cracks pays $50 to charity. Bold. We know.

Here's a little convo of ours from yesterday - i think it's pretty telling.

G: my new mission is to somehow get you to drink an unethical coffee.... i'm going to replace the brew at seven shores with folgers......

H: Hahahaha. It’s definitely harder than I thought it would be.

G: i've asked google maps to relabel waterloo "barren coffee-less wasteland" no response so far. what's the ruling on starbux, they allege ethical coffee, but i call shennanigans on that.....

H: Yeah, I was thinking that too.

They almost NEVER have fair trade brewed… and they are in a law suit with a village in Africa because SB wants to monopolize their region. I think they’re out as far as coffee is concerned. Now, the questions comes down to things like tazo chai lattes – which technically have no coffee in them, just syrup and milk. Acceptable, or not acceptable?

G: is it coffee syrup? are we so addicted that we need to reach this level of detail?

H: No, not coffee syrup – just a weird flavouring syrup.

G: i dunno, but i find this wee bet intriguing and horrifying. i've learned:

a) i'm way too addicted to caffeine
b) it's hard work and not convenient to get food(or a cup of coffee) that's not shit (either quality or ethically)
c) people think you're nuts if you do.
d) ethically sourced seems to have about a million definitions - tim hortons thinks theirs is. i think by definition it can't be.

H: Well, apparently as long as the company/broker paid more than $1.65/lb US to the farmer for the coffee beans – it was ethically traded, from a financial standpoint.

In terms of whether the workforce of the farmer was ethically treated… we may not be able to know for sure.

We need to find/make a site to search ethical services/product in kw region.

G: good plan!

H: I'm on it.

So there we go - lemme know if you have any good resources for local ethical stuff... any type of stuff, not just coffee. Is there a go-to to search a category or a store?

If not, who wants to help build one? This is IMPORTANT!