Coffee

I have just done two things.

1) learned how to embed HTML gadgets into my blog

2) watched a documentary on coffee.

See, some friends of mine are getting a coffee roastery going, which is pretty darn exciting, and I love coffee. And when I'm interested in something, usually one of the first things I do is go to the library website and see what comes up when the topic of my whim is entered.

There were at least a dozen books about Starbucks, as you might imagine. None of them are authorized, as far as I can tell, but it is, I think, notable that coffee and Starbucks seem to be synonymous.

Now I admit, I do like Starbucks coffee. I am aware that they do not participate in the Fair Trade movement. My only excuse - no - I have two excuses. Starbucks has been, in my most recent past, convenient. My other is that, well, there aren't that many options for decent coffee around here.

Which is why the good people at Stellar Coffee are so exciting to have as friends. If I play my cards right, I get to be their unofficial dark roast taster. They have a great lineup of coffee coming, fairly traded, that supports the communities in which their coffee is produced. I'm not going to give away the story here, because it's not mine to give, but suffice it to say that now that I've watched this video Black Gold , I will feel a lot better knowing where my coffee comes from and that it was produced and procured in an ethical manner. This movie is available for free, runs 87 minutes, and can be watched online. If you drink coffee I encourage you to watch this film. You know I don't get political all that much, at least not here, but from now on I'll be making a point of buying African, wherever I can.