Brewed fresh daily, coffee taking toll on the environment

Do you think you know coffee? I don't mean cappuccino, macchiato, americano, au lait, or black - I mean coffee Arabica, the global commodity that is traded second only to oil. Do you know what it takes for the few ounces of beans you brewed to make it from the hills of a plantation to your coffeemaker? Do you know its cost beyond the price sticker at the supermarket?

Legend has it that people first started enjoying coffee after a Middle-eastern farmer noticed the excited way his goats behaved after they ate the bright red cherries from a leafy shrub. The idea caught on at monasteries, where monks would use them to stay awake during long nights of prayer. (That's not that far from students today using both coffee, and sometimes prayer, to keep them up for late-night study sessions.) After someone discovered the efficacy of roasting and brewing coffee beans, humankind's love affair with the aromatic beverage began.

Unfortunately, most coffee today is grown at the expense of the environment. In order to increase yield, plantations took to growing vast fields of only coffee plants, but coffee is grown in countries with sub-tropical and equatorial climates - not Kansas; crops need to be rotated. This technique, like any monoculture farm, is dangerous and more harmful in the long run because of soil depletion and sacrificed biodiversity. First, clearing all existing brush to make room for coffee plants takes away the natural habitat for songbirds and other creatures in the fragile ecosystem. Also, full-sun coffee production depletes the resources of the land quicker, forcing growers to clear new land, hastening deforestation.

Coffee is primarily grown in developing countries, so their economies feel the pressure of producing as much to export as they can to make the biggest profit in the shortest time to stay competitive. Despite coffee's popularity, its price is so unstable that it makes life difficult and uncertain for farmers. Many plantation workers, scores of whom are marginalized indigenous people, are in extreme poverty as it is, and the low international price of coffee contributes to high rates of unemployment. If it's any consolation, while you're cursing the fact that your car engine won't turn on a subzero morning, just think how you could be feeling the heat of a Latin American sun while you handpick cherries that have been sprayed with a chemical that you don't know because you can't read its label.

Alternatives to destructive farming practices include growing coffee that is "shade grown," "fair trade," "organic," and other methods that ensure sustainability and integrity. These terms mean that coffee bushes have been grown among other plants, without the use of chemical pesticides or fertilizers, and by a company that pays its workers fair wages and employs them in good conditions. Luckily for Winona, the Bluff Country Co-op and Midtown Foods' Rock Solid Coffee offer a wide selection of options that won't make you go out of your way to help save the planet, people's livelihoods or to drink a better cup of brew. Well-informed consumerism tastes so good.

With 236 million Americans who drink coffee, it may be all about the drink, but places that serve drinks are just as important. Coffee shops make vital social spaces. Some say that coffee was popularized because Islam's prohibition of alcohol made Muslims turn to something else for a "psychoactive and a social glue." The cozy tea and coffee shop I work in at Sarah Lawrence is a far more popular place for students to get their caffeine before class than any of the cafeterias. Of course we have better tasting, Fair Trade, organic coffee, but we also have a working fireplace. When I come back to Winona, I always have to visit the ever-pleasant Acoustic Cafe because that's where my friends and I "hang out." In New York, people joke about there being a certain chain store coffee shop on each street corner, but it's true. It's not that people are so addicted - Americans drink less coffee today than the three cup per day average of the 1960s - but no matter where you try to fill your cup, the shops are always full.

Since now is the season of giving, give a little thought to how your habits are helping or hurting others and the planet. You can always make the New Year's resolution to break bad habits. So have a Happy New Year, decaf, no foam.