Alta Gracia coffee with a conscience Julia Alvarez' grassroots coffee brand exemplifies the spirit of Vermont

Author: Andrea Glaessner

As students of Middlebury College, we are lucky to get a little taste of Vermont. From within the boundaries of the campus, we look out a small window that frames the landscape of the scenic state with its picture-perfect sunsets, vast expanses of land transforming from green to wheat to white and the Green Mountains peering over the top of the hill on College Street.

But Vermont offers even more than that, if we are willing to step out of the Bubble and into the nooks of the small rural towns where big things happen. Unfortunately, with the combination of a heavy workload and a stimulating campus life, it is often difficult to find time or a reason to step outside Middlebury and indulge ourselves in observing and learning about some of the rustic and fascinating lives of true Vermonters.

Sometimes one does not need to venture far from Route 7 to find people with intriguing ideas and the chutzpah to see them through. In 1979, Paul Ralston started a coffee roasting company called Vermont Coffee Company in Bristol, Vt. The company is currently the only coffee roasting company in Vermont that has 100 percent fair trade organically grown coffee.

"We've made a very serious commitment to both of those social and environmental criteria," said Ralston.

He describes fair trade as a voluntary program based on a farmers' friendly purchasing system wherein a farmer pays a fair price not tied to the commodity price so there are not chronic price fluctuations. In addition, a price floor is set by an independent third party, so that farmers can maintain their income level year after year and not be drawn into poverty.

The fair trade system separates farmers from harmful market forces, recognizing that because coffee is grown in developing countries, the farmers often need protection from these forces. Ralston claims this dedication to free trade organic coffee "makes us unique in terms of values we're putting into every single sale of coffee we make."

Ralston has been very effective in spreading his mission and passion for good coffee to other progressive Vermonters. Upon speaking with Ralston, Julia Alvarez, a writer-in-residence at Middlebury College and a citizen of Weybridge, and her husband Bill Eichner, an ophthalmologist and chef, were immediately enthralled with the mission of the roasting company and decided to create their own line of fair trade organic coffee.

The beans of their brand of coffee, Cafè Alta Gracia, are grown and plucked on a 60-acre farm in the Dominican Republic on the slopes of Pico Duarte, the highest mountain in the Caribbean. The beans then travel to Bristol where they are roasted and distributed by the Vermont Coffee Company.

The name of the farm where the beans are cultivated, Finca Alta Gracia, means "high grace."

Alvarez described the development of Cafè Alta Gracia as having "amazing serendipity."

"We wanted to be a part of something that spreads grace in the world," said Alvarez. "Just when we wonder how we are going to take the next step, good things happen."

Sarah DiCandio is one of those "good things." DiCandio started working with Alvarez and Eichner about four years ago as a volunteer, bagging coffee and working with Ralston to fill the orders. According to DiCandio, "Cafè Alta Gracia started out as mail order only, until Middlebury Co-op and a few other local coffee shops started selling it."

Now that the brand has developed, recently becoming officially certified organic (even though it has always been organically grown), DiCandio is able to focus on developing the foundation at the farm in the Dominican Republic. According to their Web site, "Education in the arts or agriculture must start with the ABC's. Illiteracy is the norm, an alarming 90 percent in some areas. Thus, the Foundation Alta Gracia, supported by the coffee you buy from us, funds a school on the farm, where children and adults learn to read, where foreign students come to learn about sustainability firsthand, and where intermingling can inspire a better way of life."

DiCandio also works on developing the visitors' center, the other aspect of Cafè Alta Gracia that makes the coffee brand so distinct. Sarah explains, "People don't know how difficult it really is to bring a good cup of coffee to your table. That's what the visitor's center is all about: showing people the process of making a really good cup of coffee and introducing them to the concept of sustainability."

Though Cafè Alta Gracia has been successful in defining itself as a unique entity, the process of starting a fair trade organic line of coffee has not been easy. "We made many mistakes, we get it wrong sometimes, but it's the commitment to keep asking the right questions and never becoming so taken with the ends that you ignore how you affect the means," said Alvarez.

She concluded with a message given by Hopi elders that relates to their obstacles as an alternative farming organization: "We are the ones we have been waiting for."

"We can do it, we can change things, but it might be that we can only do it in very small ways," asserted Alvarez. "But if we don't start now how is it going to happen?" It is precisely this spirit of grassroots collaboration and the desire for a positive change that makes Vermonters so exceptional.