Facts are in...

If you haven't watched the video directly below, do so before reading this post.

It didn't take long to find some of the numbers behind the claims made by the Starbucks representative interviewed below. Apparently, the rumor is true. They do buy fair trade coffee. In 2006, Starbucks actually bought 18 million pounds of green (unroasted) coffee beans, which is a lot, unless you knew that they bought a total of 155 million pounds last year alone. Let's see, that accounts for about... 6% of their total beans as being fair trade.

There is a high note though. They did contribute over $36 million to charities last year, not including a total of 383,000 hours of volunteer work.

I'm sure this debate could probably go either way, which is why I'm not going to go into it too much. All of this info came from a publication put out by Starbucks themselves called their Corporate Social Responsibility Annual Report. If you want to read the whole thing, check it out here.

Here's one for you coffee snobs

Think you have the kind of refined palette that could identify a fine coffee from the local diner's rot gut? Are you the kind of bean nut that can differentiate between Sumatran and Ethiopian just by smell? Well then I found the coffee for you, o great coffee snob. It's called Kopi Luwak, and it'll definitely makes you think rethink your preference for expensive coffee beans.

There is a type of nocturnal cat called the Luwak that roams around in Indonesia and eats only the best, perfectly ripe coffee cherries. After the cherries pass through the Luwak's digestive system (read: are crapped out), the locals collect the Luwak's droppings and wash them off, recovering the coffee beans still encased in their protective endocarps. Apparently, this is a process which must happen anyway, so having the coffee cherry pass through a Luwak's GI tract isn't that crazy. Before roasting, beans are just hulled as usual.

Kopi Luwak, or as I like to call it "cat-crap coffee," is very hard to get a hold of on the world market. Annual production is super limited, so this one is left for you serious coffee people out there (although if you're really cool you probably already knew about it). This stuff sells for anywhere from $100 to $300 per pound and is chugged down by the gallon in places like Japan and Sumatra. So, the next time you're looking for an expensive cup o' joe, think twice about the one with the extra nutty aroma, except you, you coffee snob you (drink til your heart's content).