Last night, the PBS program Independent Lens aired a documentary called Black Gold, an enlightening look at the global coffee trade. The movie highlights an Ethiopian union of coffee farmers struggling to feed, clothe and educate their families as westerners chug down their double tall iced caramel macchiatos. It also provides a glimpse into the western-centric processes of the WTO as they shut out the issues pertaining to smaller countries in far greater need of trade support. This documentary will change your coffee buying behavior and I highly recommend anyone interested in the subject to dig deeper and start with this movie.

You’ll be surprised how little effort it takes to subvert corporate coffee. The options are out there, all you have to do is look. Tadesse Meskela, of the Oromia Coffee Farmer Co-operative Union, states in the movie:

Our hope is one day the consumer will understand what he is drinking and will ask these people who are not having fair trade coffees to pay us a fair price. This is our hope.