While we may not surf in Georgia, we're riding a wave at Café Campesino nonetheless – a wave of momentum. From the office to the roastery, our business is humming, and the positive energy is truly contagious. You'll find our schedule of upcoming activities in this issue of Fair Grounds, along with a producer profile on Cooperativa Café Timor, customer and Fair Trade partner spotlights, a Fair Trade Fact, a staff update, the first installment in a Dr. Coffee series on the lifecycle of a coffee bean and a new recipe and trivia question. It's a jam-packed issue so settle in and read on…

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"Coffee is a very good crop for us. We are members of the coffee cooperative, and they give us a good price. Because they buy our coffee fruit, we don’t have to process it. We expanded our coffee farm two years ago, and we will plant more seedlings this year." - Maria Soares

Maria Soares and her family harvest coffee on their highland farm in the village of Raimerhei located in the central mountains of East Timor, southeast Asia’s newest and poorest country. Her village’s organic coffee cooperative is part of Cooperativa Café Timor (CCT), a processing and marketing organization founded in 1994 and Café Campesino’s trading partner for the last 3 years. While East Timor production is small in the global coffee context, coffee is crucial to the country’s overall economy. It is the most important source of foreign exchange for East Timor and it serves as the primary source of income for about one-fourth of the country’s population, or some 44,000 families.

Read more…

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Geoffrey is back from his summertime journey and we are thrilled to have access to his broad range of skills once again! Right now, he is preparing the roll out of our fresh, new home page design for our website — keep your eyes peeled for our new front page towards the end of August!

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We are proud to welcome New Leaf Market to the Café Campesino family. Located in Tallahassee, Florida, they are the largest natural foods store in the North Florida and South Georgia area. A cooperative established in 1974, New Leaf Market is open to the public 7 days a week from 9am to 9pm. So, be sure to stop by and check them out…they are located at 1235 Apalachee Parkway, in Tallahassee. Their telephone number is (850) 942-2557. http://www.newleafcoop.com

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Dates: September 18 & 19 , 2004
Show Hours: Saturday 10AM - 9PM & Sunday 11AM - 7PM
Location: Washington D.C. Convention Center
801 Mount Vernon Place, NW - Washington, DC

The link below enables you to print a "2 for the price of 1 admission coupon"...just present it at the door to the Green Festival and they’ll take it from there!
2 for 1 Coupon

Or, if you want to go ahead and purchase regular priced tickets online, click on the following link:
TICKETS

Cooperative Coffees Annual Meeting, Montreal… Early next month Bill will be attending the Cooperative Coffees 2004 Annual Meeting, Sept 9 - 12, in the fun-filled city of Montreal, Canada. The meeting begins on Thursday with the "Green Day" — including a cupping table of our green beans from all sources, a first-ever Cooperative Coffees Roaster's Cup of Excellence, and presentations and discussion about the coffee cooperatives and the local contexts in which they work. The meeting is an opportunity to review the full report on the year's operations, to participate in our strategic planning process, and to meet new members and get back in touch with our far-flung existing members. This year, we will also be participating in the TransFair Canada Fair Trade Round Table in a Saturday morning recess to our business as usual. Montreal is also considered the cultural capital of Canada, with countless music bars, theater and fine cuisine. So members should come prepared to work hard by day and play hard by night!

Speaker’s Bureau - Fair Trade Presentations, Tuscaloosa, Alabama – On September 29th, Tripp and Bill will travel to Tuscaloosa, where they will first speak to a group from the University of Alabama and then later to members of the First Methodist Church about Fair Trade and Café Campesino’s role as an all Fair Trade coffee company.

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We're giving away coffee! 

Think you know a lot about coffee? Then enter our Fair Grounds Trivia Contest. Click here for our question of the month. Entering is easy and it's FUN!

Some of you are going to be in for a real jolt when you read the answer to our last question about the amount of caffeine (or lack thereof) in an espresso. Fortunately Diane Dubay came through with the correct answer. Congratulations, Diane!

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– Henry James

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• July 2004 A Fair Trade Reality Check, Fair Trade Friends: Tribal Fiber, Coffee Lab International
• June 2004 The Promise of Fair Trade, Fair Trade Friend: Global Crafts
• May 2004 Fair Trade at the Carter Center, SCAA meeting.
• April 2004 Coffee and Community in Nicaragua, Fair Trade in Americus Makes the News!
• March 2004 Fair Trade chocolate, Rosetta's Kitchen
• February 2004 Bill's Return to Guatemala, Guayakí Rainforest
• January 2004 Espresso - What's the Buzz?
• December 2003 Fair Trade: Global Exchange's Fair Trade Challenge; Fellow Fair Traders: SERRV International
• November 2003 Fair Trade: More Than Just a Fair Price; Fellow Fair Traders: Lucuma Designs
• October 2003 Exploring the Coffee Regions
• September 2003 Cooperative Coffees Annual Meeting
• August 2003 Fair Trade Friends: Oxfam America; The Art (and Science) of Roasting Coffee
• July 2003 Exploring Our Origins: Sumatra
• June 2003 Exploring Our Origins: Guatemala; Gayo Mountain Adventure; Dr. Coffee - Cupping
• May 2003 Fair Trade Friends: United Students for Fair Trade; World Fair Trade Day
• April 2003 Exploring Our Origins: Ethiopia; Celebrating Earth Day with Fair Trade
• March 2003 Bill's Central American Adventures, Part 2; SWP Decaffeination
• February 2002 Bill's Central American Adventures, Part 1
• January 2003 My Life as a Bean
• December 2002 Exploring Our Origins: East Timor; Sustainable Development
• November 2002 New Website; Gift Baskets
• October 2002 Interview with roaster Lee Harris
• September 2002 ForesTrade Wins UN Sustainability Award; Exploring Our Origins: Sumatra's Gayo Cooperative
• August 2002 Producer News: Shade Grown; Fair Trade Friends: Atlanta Audubon
• July 2002 Exploring Our Origins: Colombia
• June 2002 Back Roads Journal: Cooperative Coffees and Café Campesino; Exploring Our Origins: Peru; Fair Trade Friends: Music of the Andes
• May 2002 Staff Notes: Cinco de Mayo; Producer News: Visit to Mut Viz; Back Roads Journal: SCAA Meeting
• April 2002 Back Roads Journal: Travels in Fair Trade; Customer Composting Tip