Team Kion Shares The Benefits of Organic Coffee

Coffee is good for you. Right? Actually, necessarily. Despite coffee’s uplifting and rich flavor, all the ways it can positively affect your health and the delightful aroma that’s enough to make you excited to jump out of bed, the truth is not all coffee is created equal - especially when it comes to your health. For all the gifts of good coffee, commercial coffee- which makes up approximately 97% of the world’s supply—is toxic.

The majority of coffee on grocery store shelves is mass-produced, low-quality, depleted of beneficial antioxidants and doused with synthetic chemicals. This leaves you a stale, uninspiring brew with a laundry list of negative effects on your health, the farmers who grow it and the environment.

But fret not! Just because conventional coffee isn’t the cleanest way to start your day doesn’t mean you need to ditch your favorite morning ritual - you just might want to consider switching to a new brew! In this article, you’ll learn about the problems with commercial coffee and how you can ensure your morning drink of choice is less toxic and more healing.

The Problems With Conventional Coffee

Did you know coffee is one of the most heavily sprayed crops in the world? [1] Sadly, that is the case with the majority of commercial coffee, where the primary goal is to minimize costs and maximize yield. Coffee is traditionally a shade crop, meaning it’s intolerant to direct sunlight and thrives in areas with abundant tree cover. Not only do the trees provide natural protection from the sun, but their foliage also adds precious nutrients back into the soil. While growing in these trees is great for the health of the coffee and surrounding ecosystem, it’s less conducive to a high yield, as growers simply can’t plant the same amount of crops. [2] This presents issues for an industry that’s responsible for supplying more than 2 billion cups of coffee a day.

As a result, most coffee is grown in high density on huge swaths of shadeless land. Unfortunately, in the absence of those glorious trees, coffee plants are subject to less favorable soil conditions, as well as overexposure from the sun. This makes chemical interventions like synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, and insecticides the go-to method to help balance out unfavorable crop conditions.

Growing coffee in this way doesn’t just lead to stale, low-quality, flavorless beans. It also has negative impacts on the environment, the coffee growers and your health. Commercial coffee practices can lead to increased exposure to toxic chemicals [3]. Worse soil erosion, pesticide run-off and ecological impacts [4] and unsafe conditions for coffee growers and the surrounding communities. [5] But good news! More conscious coffee choices exist. All you have to do is know where to look.

Why You Should Opt For Organic Coffee

By making the switch to organic coffee, you’re ensuring that your favorite morning brew is healthier for humans and the planet! Organic coffee is typically grown in ideal environments. Instead of stripping the land, organic coffee practices instead reinforce a healthier natural environment for the plants, the growers and the surrounding ecosystem. [4]

Overall, there are quite a few reasons why organic coffee is the ideal choice for your morning ritual:

• Ethically Sourced: The workers on organic coffee farms typically enjoy safer working conditions, ethical treatment, and fair wages.
• Healthier Choice: Organic coffee has lower levels of pesticides and other synthetic chemicals, making it a healthier choice for you and your family.
• Better Taste: Beans grown in biodiverse, nutrient-dense soil results in a more rich, fresh flavor.

Simply put, choosing organic coffee is better for all. And we at Kion are die-hard coffee lovers who just so happen to produce some of the cleanest coffee around!

Kion Coffee: Organic Coffee That’s a Step Above the Rest

Our expert roasters at Kion create some of the cleanest coffee available with your health (and taste buds) in mind.

The Best Beans

Not only is Kion Coffee USDA Certified Organic, but it’s also “specialty grade” placing it in the top 3% of coffees worldwide. Specialty grade ensures the highest, most consistent bean quality and is also as transparent as you can get. The coffee cooperatives where the beans are sourced, the date of the harvest and the variety of the beans are all traceable. For perspective, commercial coffee is like blending together a bunch of grapes from different countries, dying it red, fermenting it to make alcohol and calling it red wine! Specialty coffee, on the other hand, is like drinking a vintage wine from a single estate in Tuscany.

Roasted for Health

Kion Coffee beans are tested by an accredited global organization for things you’d rather not drink (that can also harm your health), including yeast, pesticides, mold and mycotoxins. Now that you know how clean our beans are, we can focus on the roasting process. Each batch of Kion Coffee is roasted by experts using the world’s most efficient and environmentally-friendly “smokeless” roaster. Our coffee is carefully roasted to preserve both naturally occurring antioxidants and reduce the formation of acrylamides: the potentially carcinogenic chemicals that form on some foods during high-temperature cooking processes, such as frying, roasting and baking. [6][7]

Unbeatable Taste

Our expert Kion’s roastmasters personally taste every batch of the coffee, ensuring each cup is as delicious as the last. For the coffee aficionados out there, you can expect a balanced, very clean flavor with a smooth, rich medium body. You’ll taste notes of sweet apple, marzipan and baking spices. As the cup cools, a nice dark chocolate character emerges. After it passes the taste test, the coffee is packaged and sealed in nitrogen-flushed bags to protect the delicate oils and nutrients in the beans from oxidation.

The result is a consistently delicious, clean and fresh coffee - and we ship right to your doorstep! Read more about Kion and specifically Branch Basics founder Allison Evans’ coffee in Clean Coffee + Allison’s Routine. If you’re looking for an organic, clean and ethical coffee, head over to our website to check us out!

References

[1] Spear, Stephanie. “Why You Should Drink Organic Coffee.” EcoWatch. August 04, 2014. Accessed 29 October 2020, https://www.ecowatch.com/why-you-should-drink-organic-coffee-1881940567.html.

[2] Perfecto, Ivette, et al. “Shade Coffee: A Disappearing Refuge for Biodiversity: Shade coffee plantations can contain as much biodiversity as forest habitats.” BioScience, Volume 46, Issue 8, September 1996, pp. 598–608., https://doi.org/10.2307/1312989.

[3] Sakamoto, Katsushi, et al. “Behavior of pesticides in coffee beans during the roasting process.” Japan Science and Technology Information Aggregator, Electronic, 2012 Vol. 53, No. 5, pp. 233-236., doi: 10.3358/shokueishi.53.233.

[4] Velmourougane, Kulandaivelu. “Impact of Organic and Conventional Systems of Coffee Farming on Soil Properties and Culturable Microbial Diversity.” Scientifica (Cairo), Vol. 2016, doi: 10.1155/2016/3604026.

[5] Nicolopoulou-Stamati, Polyxeni, et al. “Chemical Pesticides and Human Health: The Urgent Need for a New Concept in Agriculture.” Frontiers in Public Health, July 2016, doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2016.00148.

[6] Gorecki, Marciej, et al. “The Antioxidant Content of Coffee and Its In Vitro Activity as an Effect of Its Production Method and Roasting and Brewing Time.” Antioxidants, 2020 Vol. 9, Issue 4, p. 308., doi: 10.3390/antiox9040308

[7] “Survey Data on Acrylamide in Food.” U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Accessed 29 October 2020, https://www.fda.gov/food/chemicals/survey-data-acrylamide-food.