Starbucks: people either love ‘em or loathe ‘em. My husband likes their coffee and admires their business brains. I, on the other hand, can’t stand them for their homogenized, yuppie style. Having grown up in grunge-era Seattle, once a land of artsy coffee shops crammed with kitschy sofas and local color, cookie-cutter Starbucks look to me like a department store: void of soul and chock-full of useless merchandise.

But how bad is Starbucks, really? I decided to find out.

1. Clean water is such a precious commodity in the world …

Tags: barista , coffee , corporate power , disposables , drink , fair trade , food and beverage , greenwash , starbucks , waste

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Triple Certified coffee – the gourmet, deluxe, connoisseur’s brew. Coffee that’s organic, fair trade and shade grown. Coffee that’s good for the people, the forest and the birds.

Here’s a guide to the cream of the cup. These sites are worth browsing for the grower’s stories and photos of the people and the farms.

Café Altura
Café Canopy
Café Fair
Caffe Ibis
Café Mam
Coffee-Tea-Etc
Dean’s Beans
The Groovy Mind
Grounds for Change
Heine Brothers Coffee
Higher …

Tags: coffee , drink , fair trade , food , organic , songbirds , triple certified

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“What size cup would you like? Small, Medium, Large, Super, Tall, Grande, Venti, Super-Venti, Hungover or perhaps Recession Special?”

“None of the above, please.”

It’s a dream I have. Follow me on a choose-your-own-post journey into the What If.

It’s the future, a greener, more enlightened time. You drop in on your local coffee vendor – let’s call it McStarMart – ready for a cup of exquisitely roasted bean-juice to kick start your day. You’re standing quietly in the queue, and – something odd is going on.

People are reaching into their pockets …

Tags: coffee , cup , recyclable , recycling , starbucks , sustainable

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Although coffee gets a bad rap, it’s actually a medicinal food. In fact, this stimulating bean isn’t nearly so bad as we’ve all been taught. Although I’m skeptical about grande latte supplementation in the long run (it’s a drug, after all), I found myself surprised by much of the science on coffee. Poor Ponce de Leon; all this time he should have been searching for the espresso machine.

Step aside, acai. Here are 20 surprising health benefits of coffee.

Apparently, …

Tags: coffee , drink , fair trade , health , indulgence

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Can drinking coffee reduce your risk of developing dementia and Alzheimer’s Disease? According to a study at the University of Kuopio, Finland in collaboration with the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, Sweden, and the National Public Health Institute in Helsinki, Finland, the answer is yes.

The January 2009 issue of The Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease (Volume 16:1) reported that the coffee drinking participants involved in a 21-year study had significantly lower incidences.

The consumption of coffee was assessed in three groups: those who drank 0-2 cups; 3-5 cups; and more than 5 …

Tags: aging , Alzheimer's Disease , coffee , dementia , health , prevention , wellness

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