With One Bean / The importance of getting to know sunflowers

With One Bean I didn’t know that it’s faster to take a plane from Darwin to Dili than it is to fly from Melbourne to Sydney. However, standard of living-wise, education-wise, just about everything-else-wise between our countries is as about far apart as you could imagine.   It’s easy to forget that less than 20 […]

Fresh pistachios – once in a lifetime. A pantheon of coffee heroes

The other day Shane O’Dea, in his business shirt and slacks (he’s a paediatrician by day), wandered into the Fair Food warehouse with a 5kg box of shiny pink and white fresh pistachios (like those in the pic up there) and asked if we were interested in trying some.  Now you could quite easily live your […]

Fairtrade, Max Havelaar and life after Pink Bag. Last Step to Intestinal Heaven

Pink Bag is going and we need some help.  Pink Bag is Universal Village’s Fairtrade coffee beans which you might know better as Rhino Coffee – it’s packed in bright pink packaging, hence various expressions commonly heard at the Fair Food warehouse such as “Do you want a Pink Bag?” or “There’s a fresh pot of […]

Making friends can really shake your life up. Care for your box, care for the world.

When I started researching coffee I heard a lot of talk about cupping. It sounded mysterious; I first imagined cupping was similar to the Chinese medicine practice but with hot latte glasses suctioned to the taster’s body containing different coffee beans and then by a process of infusion he or she came up with a score for each batch. […]