1. What is Just Coffee?
Just Coffee is a coffee cooperative dedicated to addressing the immigration crisis by offering coffee farmers a fair price for their crops.
2. How was it started?
Eduardo Perez Verdugo, a coffee farmer from Chiapas. once said, "To leave one's land is to suffer.” This sparked an idea in the minds of members of the Lily of the Valley Church in Agua Prieta, Mexico. The Just Coffee cooperative formed in 2001 to provide a way for coffee farmers to remain on their land. The first pound of coffee from Just Coffee was roasted, ground, packaged. and sold to the market in November of 2002.
3. How is buying coffee helping the immigration crisis?
The coffee we sell comes directly from farmers in the Salvador Urbina community of Chiapas, Mexico who are struggling to support their families. Although farming families have sold their coffee for many years, they are often forced to sell their coffee to “coyotes", who are "middlemen" in the market. These coyotes sell the farmers' coffee to the American market without paying a fair and just price for the coffee. Unable to make living wages, many families feel compelled to flee to border towns like Agua Prieta and attempt to illegally cross the border to the U.S. In the last decade, over 3,000 people, many of them farmers from Chiapas, have died in the desert trying to cross into the U.S. Just Coffee strongly believes that by helping the farmers to receive a fair price for their crops, they will not be forced to leave their land and attempt the dangerous border crossing into the U.S.
4. Where is Chiapas anyway?
Chiapas is the southern‑most state in Mexico. It borders the Pacific Ocean and the country of Guatemala. It is a lush, green land rich with coffee, fruits, plants, and other natural resources, but very poor in economic terms.
5. How is Just Coffee giving a fair price to the coffee farmers in Chiapas?
Just Coffee does not use coyotes. The coffee comes directly from the farmers to Agua Prieta, where it is roasted, ground, and packaged. and then exported to the U.S. for our customers. Fair Trade Principles require that farmers receive a minimum of $1.26 per lb. Just Coffee returns $1.30 per lb. back to the coffee farmers. Most major coffee companies only return $.35 to $.40 per lb to farmers.
6. What exactly are Fair Trade Principles?
Just Coffee complies and exceeds Fair Trade principles, which set a minimum of $1.26 per lb. for return to the cooperative while Just Coffee returns $1.30. The Fair Trade Principles also call for a long term relationship within the cooperative, that the cooperative be democratically run, utilize environmentally sustainable practices, and offer credits for advance payment for coffee.
7. So what is Fair Trade PLUS that Just Coffee is involved with?
Fair Trade PLUS keeps the entire manufacturing process within cooperative. Therefore, green coffee beans are not transported to the U.S., but are roasted in Agua Prieta, Mexico. Just Coffee operates the roasting process in Mexico, which fosters job creation in the community of Agua Prieta. All money from an order of Just Coffee stays in Mexico and promotes economic development.
8. How much is this all really helping?
In less than 3 years, Just Coffee has purchased 25 tons of coffee from the members of the cooperative! Growers in Chiapas have been paid $65,000 ($1.30 per lb.), compared to $17,500 ($. 35 per lb.) in the large coffee company market. Just Coffee has created 5 jobs in Mexico and positively impacted local economies in Chiapas & Agua Prieta. Every bit helps!
9. "Who" is Just Coffee?
Currently there are 35 families from Chiapas in our cooperative and others are waiting to join. In Agua Prieta, the coffee is roasted, ground, and packaged by Hermano Daniel and Hermana Vicki who are from the Salvador Urbina, Chiapas and have lived in Agua Prieta since 1996. The other employees include Adrian Gonzalez, Director of Customer Relations, Deysi Garcia, Data Entry, and Eva Perez, Director of Communications in Chiapas.
10. So what is so great about the actual coffee?
Our coffee is certified 100% organic, shade-grown coffee in Mexico. When roasted, it retains the more volatile aromatics that provide a fresh taste high in the palate with very little of the bitter aftertaste of other coffees.
11. What kinds are offered?
Just Coffee offers 100% Arabica coffee, 100% Robusta (a slightly stronger) coffee, a blend of the two, and our new decaffeinated Arabica coffee. Darker roasts, as well as green, un-roasted beans of each kind are also available. The coffee is available in 1 lb. packages of ground or whole bean.
12. How much does it cost?
Just Coffee offers a fair, competitive price! Retail price is $8 per pound roasted, and $4 per pound green + volume pricing.
AVAILABLE AT SAINT CYRIL PARISH OFFICE
