Things you don’t know about organic coffee
- Vela Ethan
- Mar 13
- 4 min read
Everyone is familiar with organic coffee. But opinions vary.
Some people believe that high costs are incurred in planting in order to protect the environment from being destroyed.
Some people think that it is because the farmers in the production areas are very poor and have no money to spray pesticides, so they produce it.
What exactly is organic coffee?
1. What is organic coffee?
In many parts of the world, coffee growers often use pesticides to control the growth of coffee pests. Often, the humidity and fog in high altitude areas make coffee more vulnerable to pests, so growers often use pesticides, insecticides and other chemical raw materials to treat it. Especially the #Arabica variety.
#OrganicCoffee The coffee trees on the farm are grown without any chemical raw materials, pesticides, insecticides, herbicides or artificial food additives; everything from soil and water quality testing, planting, cultivation, harvesting to production must meet organic conditions.
The soil must be free of synthetic chemicals for a certain number of years, which varies depending on the country where the organic certification is obtained, for example, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and China have a three-year period.
Fertilizers are usually manure, spent coffee pulp and general compost and must be 100% organic matter.
Using organic pesticides and natural, environmentally friendly planting methods allows coffee trees to coexist with the forest.
For example, the #PeruvianCoffee farm that #VillaYison cooperates with mostly grows coffee under the shade of trees, and does not contain any synthetic residues during the coffee processing process. That is, the processing equipment that handles coffee must be separated from non-organic coffee. The processing and roasting process of beans should be separated from non-organic.
These processes must also be certified by a third party (other than the coffee manufacturer and buyer) before they can be called organic coffee beans.
"Organic" is about this process, and how to obtain certification?？
2. How to obtain organic certification?
Certification bodies and standards may vary from country to country.
In the United States, the most authoritative organic certification is the USDA of the United States Department of Agriculture. USDA standards are extremely strict, and products with the USDA logo on their packaging are officially certified to have used 100% organic ingredients.
USDA specific standards are as follows:
1. The ingredients used do not contain any chemical synthetic substances, such as fertilizers, pesticides, antibiotics, food additives, etc.
2. The growing soil has not been treated with chemical synthetic substances for at least three years.
3. Check production and sales records regularly.
4. Maintain strict physical separation of certified organic products.
5. Inspect the production facilities and buildings of organic products.
6. Products that contain only organic ingredients can use labels stating "100% organic" or use the USDA logo.
7. Products that use more than 70% organic ingredients can be called "made with organic ingredients" but cannot use the USDA logo.
There is also the Organic Crop Improvement Association (OCIA), a non-profit organization that provides research, education and certification services in organic agriculture and organic food. As a pioneer in the world's organic product certification industry, OCIA has thousands of members in 20 countries around the world, including North America, Central and South America, Europe, Africa and the Pacific region.
But even with these authoritative organic certifications, products still need locally recognized organic certification before they can be sold in local markets. Peru, which currently ranks fifth in the world in the production and export of Arabica coffee, is also the country with the most organically certified coffee.
3. Flavor Differences between Organic and Non-Organic Coffee？ What's the key to a good cup of coffee?
Good brewing techniques and utensils are indispensable, but high-quality coffee beans are the key. This is just like a stale fish. No matter how fancy the cooking is, it may not taste good. But a fresh fish will be very delicious if steamed with some ginger. The same goes for coffee. If the quality of the coffee beans is poor, no matter how good the brewing techniques or utensils are, you won’t be able to brew a good cup of coffee.
According to Scott Rao in his book Coffee Roasting, there are many factors that affect flavor performance, including the origin of coffee beans, size, shape, density, moisture, processing process and roasting degree. Therefore, it has no direct relationship with whether the coffee beans are grown organically.
If we want to distinguish the difference in flavor between organic and non-organic, it is better to say that a good cup of coffee depends on good coffee beans. Like the organic coffee from the Sacred Valley of the Sky City in Peru, which is cooperated with #velaethan, and the lightly anaerobic fermented and sun-dried #Amuesha coffee, which has a unique taste even though it is organically grown, with the aroma of oak barrels and the sweetness of nut chocolate.
4. Why should you drink organic coffee?
#Coffee is an indispensable daily necessity for many people. Many studies have shown that drinking coffee can improve vitality and work efficiency, caffeine can promote metabolism and burn fat, and reduce the risk of disease.
In order to grow more coffee to meet such huge demand, large amounts of forests are being cut down and burned. When forests are cut down, the habitats of birds and many creatures are destroyed, and certain pests and creatures are able to multiply in large numbers. In order to protect coffee, farmers have to use large amounts of pesticides, which not only poisons the environment and land, but also directly harms human health.
The process of growing organic coffee is so difficult and challenging that currently only 8.5% of the world’s coffee is organic. However, it is not only environmentally friendly, it also protects human health.
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