Coffee Break

Starbucks announced this morning that the company’s UK outlets will be offering its first 100% Fair Trade certified coffee from Rwanda starting in 2010. The company also announced its commitment to making all of its espresso from FairTrade certified coffee across the UK.

According to the press release:

The Fairtrade certified Rwandan coffee comes from the Dukunde Kawa co-op first visited by Starbucks coffee buyers in 2005 and Fairtrade certified since 2004. The selected coffee, which will be available in UK stores for a limited time due to the size of the production, is a fully-washed Bourbon arabica coffee coming from high-altitude farms

Starbucks isn’t the only big name promoting Rwandan coffee recently. Rwanda, devastated by Civil War  in the 1980s and 1990s, is still slowly recovering from a genocide that killed as many as 1,000,000 Rwandans in 1994. Coffee is the country’s major export and one of its most important economic sectors. For many of the country’s women, coffee represents a future for their children and their families. FairTrade certified coffee means that their work results in more than bare subsistence returns for their coffee.

Last year, former U.S. president Bill Clinton and Scots philanthropist Sir Tom Hunter worked together with Rwandan coffee farmers to establish their own brand of coffee, Rwandan Farmers Coffee. Rwandan Farmers Coffee brand is available in Sainsbury’s stores across the UK. It’s not available yet in the U.S., so if anyone out there with a local Sainsbury’s has tried it, I’d love a review!

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