Shuswap Coffee Company Ltd.

The coffee industry provides more than 20 million jobs.
Next to oil, coffee is the second largest commodity in the world.
If ALL of the coffee in the world was fairly traded and organically grown, just think of the positive impact it would have on the environment and on the people.
Coffee cherries were used as a food before the process of drying, roasting, and brewing came to be.
All coffee is grown within 1,000 square miles of the equator.
Coffee is the most labour-intensive product on the market. There are 400 farmer hours invested in one 150-pound bag of green beans, which will be 120 pounds of roasted coffee.
For 1 lb. of coffee, it takes around 2,000 handpicked Arabica coffee cherries. With two beans per cherry, this means around 4,000 beans are in a single pound of coffee.
Coffee cherries do not ripen uniformly. The same branch may display ripe red berries, unripe green berries and overripe black berries. Conscientious pickers select only the ripe berries.
A mature coffee tree will produce one pound of coffee per growing season.

Coffee beans lose between 15% and 20% of their weight while being roasted. Dark roasts have less caffeine, while light roasts are more acidic.
The aromas in coffee develop at the tenth minute of roasting.
Coffee beans are best kept in an airtight container and ground just prior to brewing. It is best to buy only what you need for a week at a time.