Puro Fairtrade Coffee - Your cuppa with a conscience!

How many of you are absolute coffee maniacs? Plenty enough to keep the hipster cafe scene going for sure. But I'm just curious - do you care where your coffee comes from and what impact it has on the environment?

Here's a company you may not have heard of - Puro - that believes people and the planet are just as important as profits. Puro was created in 2005 by a company called Miko which has been roasting coffee beans in Belgium for 212 years. Born out of growing environmental and ethical concerns, Puro has always sourced Fairtrade, organic and shade grown coffee.

Well, it has to be good coffee first, right? Fortunately it is. Puro kindly sent me a sample of some of the beans:
- Fuerte: dark roasted blend of high grown Arabica blended with Congo Robusta beans (50%). Almost like bittersweet chocolate.
- Noble: mild, smooth, floral Guatemalan Arabicas blended with Peruvian Arabicas, and 20% premium Robusta
- Bio-organic: 100% Arabica from Peru and Honduras, the most delicate blend of the three, with soft notes of chocolate and citric sweetness.

My family likes the intense and full-bodied Fuerte best of all. But back to the conscientious part.

Fairtrade coffee is grown by small farmers or plantation workers meticulous about their crops, and the Fairtrade Foundation helps lift their working conditions and the lives of workers in the coffee growing dependent communities in the developing world.

Puro is also at the forefront of buying and protecting rainforests and is actively working alongside the World Land Trust, whose patron is Sir David Attenborough. Together, they even put a webcam in the  Ecuadorian rainforest to keep an eye on endangered species and raise awareness for conservation. Special forest reserves also keep near extinct species like the Golden Poison Frog alive.

For every cup of coffee sold, money is given to buy and protect areas of rainforest in South America. To date, Puro has saved over 5,600 acres (about 6,000 football fields) of rainforest across three Puro reserves in Ecuador, Brazil and Colombia.

Watch their story in this video they made in the heart of South America.



Puro Fairtrade Coffee Film from Puro Fairtrade Coffee on Vimeo.

They don’t have their own coffee shops but they supply some of the UK’s leading chains of cafes and restaurants, such as National Trust, Le Pain Quotidien, Leon, and Gourmet Burger Kitchen. I have seen their ancillary products in hotels (sugar sachets in W Bali, for example). You'll find Puro widely available in mainland Europe, Africa, Australasia and recently in Canada (they are currently looking for a US distributor).

It's great that you can have amazingly good coffee that helps the environment and the community that grows it. I've not seen any other coffee producer that is this dedicated to the cause.

For more details, visit the
Main Facebook page - https://www.facebook.com/fairtradecoffee

Singapore Facebook page - https://www.facebook.com/purocoffeesingapore
Singapore online store - http://store.purocoffee.com.sg
(Oooh, they now carry Puro Caremelized Speculoos Biscuits and Puro Belgian Hot Chocolate Drink)



Many thanks to Puro and Tamara Wolf for sending me the coffee from the UK!