So usually I stick to recommending cafes that serve fair trade coffee — but I’m making an exception for Jones Coffee.

Why? This Pasadena roaster gets its coffee from Finca dos Marias, a large farm that’s been featured on PBS for its progressive, worker-friendly policies.

The farm employees are given land to live on — no migratory workers — and are even unionized. But the farm’s not currently eligible for fair trade certification, because only farmer co-ops can get fair trade certification for coffee. (Check out the Coffee Crisis Series for more deets on this)

As you can imagine, the fact that the coffee grown on his family farm can’t be fair trade certified has made fair trade a sore point for Chuck. Still, when I called him a few months ago to find out about the company, Chuck said, “I don’t think fair trade’s bad, but I don’t necessarily support the organization,” meaning TransFair USA.

More on the lil friendly debate we had about fair trade later. More importantly for now, the coffee sold at Jones Coffee appears to be grown and harvested using fair labor practices.

Sadly, this coffee’s not organic. A conversion hasn’t been outruled, however — Apparently, Mark Inman of the 100% fair trade Taylor Maid Farms is a close friend of Chuck’s mom, who runs the farm. And Mark’s been pushing hard for a switch — and according to Chuck, Mark “has it all planned out.”

I wish Mark luck. For now, Jones Coffee uses only organic milk, and does offer one Mexican organic coffee; however, that coffee obviously doesn’t come from the family farm in Guatemala…

Anyway — I dropped by earlier today with my friend Christian, and got super wired cuz Chuck did a lil tasting for us. Now, I twitch as I type –

Jones Coffee Roasters. 537 S. Raymond Ave. 626.564.9291. Pasadena. Mo-Fri, 7 am – 6 pm; Sa, 9 am – 4 pm; closed Sunday.

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