Coffee naturally grows and thrives beneath trees that provide a canopy of shade. Coffee connoisseurs say shade grown coffee, also called bird friendly coffee, is superior in taste to coffee grown in the sun.
But as you can imagine, gathering coffee beans in the forest is not as easy as gathering beans in a coffee field. So science and greed have come together to produce plant varieties that withstand direct sunlight. As a result, forests are slashed and burned to create plantation style coffee fields, and once again animal habitats are lost along with regional biodiversity. The integrity of the soil is lost as well when coffee plants grown as a single crop sap the nutrients from the soil and increases erosion, causing dependency on chemical fertilizers.
For the best tasting, environmentally responsible coffee, purchase shade grown, fair trade, organic coffee.
