Java Forest Shade-Grown Coffee

Our award-winning coffee is the result of the care it receives along its journey from the coffee tree to the roaster. Java Forest is grown under the forest canopy on small family farms owned by community cooperatives. These farms use traditional growing methods that achieve quality and consistency without the use of chemicals and pesticides. In addition to being shade-grown and certified organic, our coffee is also fair-trade certified, guaranteeing that farmers receive a fair price for their beans.

Our carefully selected roaster, Thanksgiving Coffee Company, has set the standard for excellence in sustainable and socially responsible coffees since 1972, and has repeatedly received national and international accolades for its products.

Our Coffee Selection
There are three different Java Forest coffees to choose from:

Java Forest Light
A lightly roasted breakfast blend. It's full flavored and richly complex.

Java Forest Dark
A Mexican French roast with deep body and strong finish.

Java Forest Decaf
A medium roast - toasty, sweet and lively. It's decaffeinated using the classic Swiss Water Process.

Shade-grown coffee is a term used to describe coffee that is grown under some level of tree cover. This tree cover can be natural forest canopy or a more managed system, where farmers plant shade trees. Coffee evolved as an understory plant in tropical forests. For hundreds of years, coffee was grown only under shade because the coffee plants could not tolerate direct sunlight. It was only recently that farmers, in attempt to increase production, began growing coffee that � with heavy inputs of chemicals and pesticides � can survive in full sun. There are many environmental benefits to purchasing coffee that is shade-grown � including the protection of important wildlife habitat. In addition, there are important social benefits to buying coffee that is fair-trade certified.

Java Forest coffee is certified organic by the Organic Crop Improvement Association (OCIA). To meet OCIA's strict standards, coffee must be grown without harmful pesticides or synthetic fertilizers. Organic coffee farms utilize bio-intensive farming practices like intercropping and integrated pest management to provide natural fertilizer and natural control of pests and insects. These natural methods assure a higher degree of biodiversity, and provide healthy alternatives to harmful synthetic pesticides and fertilizers, which threaten wildlife and pollute streams and rivers.

After oil, coffee is the largest legally traded commodity in the world. By some estimates, 3,000 cups of coffee are drunk every second. Like any commodity, coffee prices fluctuate according to supply and demand. Today, world prices for coffee beans have fallen to their lowest-ever level in real terms. This crash has placed a tremendous burden on millions of farmers and laborers in many parts of the world. Currently, farmers make roughly 40 cents for every one-pound bag of coffee they produce. That�s around 4% of the retail price. When prices fall this low, farmers quickly need to increase their income in order to provide for their families. To accomplish this, a farmer is faced with few options. He can attempt to increase production through the use of chemicals, clear more land for coffee production, switch to more environmentally-harmful crops or convert his land to pasture (cutting down the forest in the process), or leave the community to join the masses who are deserting their homelands and migrating to nearby urban areas.

There is an alternative. The concept of fairly-traded goods is a simple one; give the farmers a fair price for the crops they grow. This is the principle behind fair trade coffee. Because Java Forest is Fair Trade Certified, coffee farmers are guaranteed a fair price for their beans -- at least $1.41 for every pound of certified organic coffee they sell. By returning a livable wage to farmers that use sustainable, wildlife-friendly growing practices, your purchase of Java Forest contributes to habitat conservation and truly sustainable development.

Download information on our partner cooperatives in Mexico, Guatemala, and Nicaragua. (TransfairUSA coop profiles)

If you are not buying shade-grown coffee, chances are your coffee is sun-grown. Until recently, coffee trees could not tolerate direct sun. In recent decades, global market forces have led coffee farmers around the world to replace their shade coffee trees with newer, hybrid coffee varieties that can grow in full sunlight. Although these hybrid trees produce higher volumes of beans per acre, they do so at great costs. Land must be cleared to make way for the sun coffee plants, which can require the clear-cutting of natural forest or managed shade. In addition to destroying valuable habitat for birds and other wildlife, clear-cutting the forest and disturbing the forest soil also release greenhouse gases that contribute to global climate change. To survive and bear fruit, sun coffee plants require large inputs of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, which can threaten the health of workers and pollute streams and rivers that are vital for both humans and wildlife. Finally, the intense agricultural practices required for sun coffee quickly exhaust the soil, compelling sun coffee farmers to start the process all over again on another piece of land.

Coffee can be grown under several different classes of shade, which can vary from a highly managed single species of shade tree to a more natural forest canopy. The quality of this shade determines how useful the shade coffee farm is to wildlife and the preservation of biodiversity. The following are some of the definitions of shade that experts use to classify shade levels.

Rustic shade. This term is used to describe a coffee plantation where the shade is not managed. Coffee trees are simply planted under the natural forest.

Traditional polyculture. The quality of this shade mimics that of Rustic Shade, however, there is deliberate planting of shade trees, usually to produce useful goods such as food and/or income for the farmer.

Commercial polyculture. This is similar to traditional polyculture, but is more intensively managed and more non-coffee products are produced.

Specialized shade. This system consists of the coffee plants, and usually one or two other species as its canopy. The shade is highly controlled.

Open or Full Sun. This type of management completely eliminates the over story. These areas are only oriented to producing coffee.

Java Forest coffees are grown high on the mountains in Oaxaca (pronounced wha-HA-ka), in the Southern part of Mexico, in the lush forests of Northern Nicaragua, and in rich shade canopy in the western highlands of Guatemala. We have selected these areas not only because of the exceptional taste of the coffee but additionally because these areas are extremely biologically diverse and contain a high number of wildlife species. We work only with farmers who manage their lands under rustic shade, traditional polyculture or diverse commercial polyculture.

The three major factors determining the taste of a coffee bean are the manner in which it was grown, where it was grown, and how it is roasted. Experts agree that shade grown coffee, because it is allowed to mature slowly under the forest canopy, often tastes better than sun grown varieties.

Java Forest Light Roast is a full flavored, sweet, and floral coffee while Java Forest French Roast has a more robust body and intense flavor. Java Forest Decaf is medium roasted to a toasty, sweet and lively flavor. It's decaffeinated using a certified organic water decaffeination process.

You will find the taste of shade grown coffee a wonderful and unique alternative.

The following can provide you with more in-depth information on shade- grown, organic and fair traded coffee.