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| Olive Tree |
While enjoying my NPR Fresh Air podcast about Olive Oil I was struck by the similarities between olive oil and coffee. The topic of discussion on December 12th’s interview was Tom Mueller’s new book Extra Virginity, The Sublime and Scandalous World of Olive Oil… What the heck could be scandalous about olive oil, you might be asking? Well, what I learned is – a lot! And it is strikingly similar to the coffee industry.
First, I’d just like to get back to the basics. We are so accustomed to seeing coffee and olive oil on the grocery store shelf, far removed from the tree on the farm where they originate. It is important to remember that we get our coffee & olive oil from the fruit of trees. With olive oil, you squeeze out the fruit’s oils and with coffee you pop out the fruit’s seeds and roast them. As with all fruit, both coffee and oil are perishable and should not be consumed months and years after processing.
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| Coffee Tree |
The biggest similarity between olive oil and coffee production is the intese pressure applied by large companies, driven by profitability goals, to make major adjustments to the process by taking shortcuts and employing less than desirable practices. As a result, the farmers out there who are trying to do it the right way are finding it hard, if not impossible to compete.
With both olives and coffee, resellers combine high and low quality product to pass on to the consumers as a premium product. In oil they fill the bottle with lower grade oil, add artificial colors and pass it off as Extra Virgin Olive Oil… The same goes for the coffee industry. Typical “gourmet coffee” brands water down their high-flavor, high-quality beans with cheaper, stale and bland beans and then mass-roast (oftentimes over-roast) to hide the flavor of the cheap coffee. These bags are then flushed with nitrous to help extend their shelf life and distributed across the country. Next time you are buying your coffee, ask yourself – When was this roasted?
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| Really? Strawberry Shortcake Coffee? |
Another way coffee companies have been able to sell you a sub-standard product but charge you a premium price is to offer flavored coffee. Well, how do they get those flavors into the beans? The process usually involves treating the beans with chemical flavorings… Additionally, manufacturers use less expensive and a lower quality bean to make flavored coffee because the flavors will cover up any defects of the coffee bean. So think about it... You are now paying a premium for a lower quality chemically filled product.
As with all things in life, if you want a high quality product, you have to be willing to pay for it. It is expensive to make olive oil and coffee the right way. From farming standards, to processing, to transportation and product maintenance – it all takes money. While times are tough for all of us I understand that it can be hard to justify paying more for olive oil, or coffee. What I can guarantee though is that if you do, you will immediately see the difference in quality, freshness and flavor.
As the offspring of two hippies I have been hearing the need for organic, locally grown, grass-fed beef and free range chicken/eggs since the day I was born. I am thrilled to see how much this country has changed in the last 20 years, thanks to people like John Mackey, Eric Schlosser and Michael Pollan. In all of this effort to eat cleaner food, how is it that staples like olive oil, and coffee have been forgotten?
