Café Verde
Hours
Mon.-Sat. 7:00am-9:30pm
Sundays 9:00am-8:00pm
Pull up a chair and savor a treat at Ann Arbor’s premier fair trade café! Have a meal with friends, or hang out and enjoy the atmosphere.
100% of our coffees and teas are fairly traded. We serve a wide variety of selections including Panini, bagels, sandwiches, cookies, and pastries (including vegan options). Many are made right here at the Co-op. Others are sourced locally from area bakeries like Detroit’s Avalon and Ypsilanti’s River St. Bakery.
Coffee selections vary from day to day. Our coffee comes to you via Equal Exchange, whose trading partners span the world’s coffee-growing cooperatives. Also, Brewing Hope, sourced directly from the Yachil Cooperative in Santa Catarina, Chiapas, Mexico and roasted by the Higher Grounds Trading Company.
Art in the Cafe
Café Verde features rotating showings by local artists. For more information, please email the Café Manager.
Café Menu
At Cafe Verde we offer a complete menu of lattes, cappuccinos, espresso, macchiatos, americanos and the lke. In addition, we also offer a wide selection of teas and fresh juices and smoothies. You can order off the menu or get creative with your own combination. In the fall, you are likely to also find cider from local orchards or freshly squeezed lemonade to cool you off in summer. The cream and milk for your coffee will be organic and we offer natural sweeteners like raw sugar, honey and stevia if you like.
At PFC we are committed to a healthy environment. We use compostable cups, napkins, to-go containers and flatware, made from renewable resources.
How About a Pot of Fair Trade Coffee for Your Event!
We are happy to brew full 64 oz. press pots of fair trade coffee for your party, office event or family get-together. Order at least 24 hours in advance by calling (734)302-7032. Cost is only $8.50 per pot (plus a $10 per pot fully refundable deposit).
How Is Coffee Grown?
Coffee plants require a certain climate in which to thrive and produce the most flavorful fruits, and this climate is found near the equator in areas with altitudes over 3,000 feet, rich volcanic soil, higher rainfall averages, and steady temperatures. Many commercial coffee farms strip the land of trees to allow for faster-growing coffee plants, but shade-grown coffee is planted underneath the existing tree canopy and has a much lighter environmental impact and, some would argue, better flavor due to its slower growth.
Shade-grown coffee preserves the biodiversity of not only plants and trees, but also the birds and animals living around the farms.
Coffee plants take about four years to mature and produce harvestable fruit, and each plant produces roughly one pound of coffee beans.
The beans we recognize grow within fruit called “cherries,” which turn red when ripe. The beans form inside a thin silver skin, encased in a thin layer called parchment, all inside a layer of pulp within the cherry skin. All of these layers must be removed to access the beans inside.
Cherries are either laid out to dry and hulled, or soaked and rinsed to expose the beans, which are inspected and bagged for shipment to a roaster. The green beans are roasted at varying temperatures and times to bring out their aroma.
All About Fair Trade
This information is from the Fair Trade Federation website. For more, visit the site.
“Fair trade is a system of exchange that seeks to create greater equity and partnership in international trading systems by
- Creating Opportunities for Economically and Socially Marginalized Producers
- Developing Transparent and Accountable Relationships
- Building Capacity
- Promoting Fair Trade
- Paying Promptly and Fairly
- Supporting Safe and Empowering Working Conditions
- Ensuring the Rights of Children
- Cultivating Environmental Stewardship
- Respecting Cultural Identity
By approaching development as a whole process (rather than just a fair price), fair trade organizations cultivate partnerships with their suppliers and contribute to the development of communities. Fair trade is not about charity; it uses a fairer system of exchange to empower producers and to create sustainable, positive change.”
People’s Food Co-op supports fair trade by serving fairly traded coffees and teas in Café Verde, and by giving preference to fair trade goods in our product mix.