Liberate Your Latte

Here at the Fair Trade WA Group Shop we love a good tea or coffee to get through a cold winter morning. We stock a variety of delicious fairtrade BioBean coffees (both ground and whole bean) from Columbia, Ethiopia, Honduras, East Timor and other areas of the world as well as Oxfams own Fair. label of tea, coffee (or hot chocolate for the kids and sweet tooth people out there). Maybe you're more of a tea drinker? You'll find a large range of Clipper tea in flavours such as Fennel, Green Chai and Rasberry leaf and a selection of Qi Organic Teas at only $5 per box of 20 or 25 bags.

Pop into the volunteer run store between 11 and 3pm at 5 King William Street Bayswater or phone ahead on 08 9262 8206 to place an order. While you're in don't forget to mosey through other fairtrade product. (All purchases are cash only).

New Better World Arts Stock Coming Soon!

We have just discovered these new items on offer from Better World Arts and could not resist ordering the sets of mugs and trays. It is always exciting to be able to order in new products and extend our range to customers.

Imagine drinking your next cup of Fair Trade tea or coffee from one of these beautiful mugs or the pleasure that it would be to give such a  wonderful gift.

Fair Trade Recipe - Chocolate Cake

A slice of the dense chocolate cake with some of its fair trade ingredients.

Here's another recipe using fair trade ingredients, this time a delicious flourless chocolate cake that incorporates dark chocolate, cocoa and coffee.

Flourless Chocolate Cake

Adapted from a Baking Bites recipe

Ingredients

110g fair trade dark chocolate, chopped

110g unsalted butter

0.75 cup caster sugar

3 large eggs

1.5 tsp vanilla extract

1.5 strong brewed fair trade coffee

0.5 cup fair trade cocoa powder (see note)

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180C and line a 20cm diameter springform tin with  baking paper.
2. Melt the chocolate and butter together either in a pan on the stove or in the microwave. If using the stove, put butter in first and let melt a little so that the chocolate won't burn.
3. Pour warm chocolate/butter mixture into a medium mixing bowl with the sugar. Whisk to combine. Beat in eggs one at a time, waiting until each has been fully incorporated to add the next, then mix in vanilla extract and coffee. 
4. Sift cocoa powder into the bowl and whisk until well-combined.
5. Pour into prepared cake tin.
6. Bake for 25 minutes until firm to touch. The top will have a crackly crust
7. Allow the cake to cool in the tin for 5 minutes, then run a knife around the edge of the cake to loosed from the tin. You can serve the cake crackly side up, or invert it so that the smooth base is on show.

Enjoy!

Note: The original recipe calls for Dutch processed cocoa powder. This is cocoa powder that has been treated with an alkaline to neutralise its acidity. You can tell it apart from unalkalised cocoa powder by its darker colour. The Green and Black's organic cocoa used to make the cake pictured above is Dutch processed.

Fairtrade Instant Coffee

We are now stocking a new instant coffee supplied by out friends at Fair Go Trading, it is produced from superior Arabica beans grown by small farmers in Colombia. By purchasing this product you are supporting the Fairtrade practice that requires buyers to pay a Fairtrade Premium to the producers for re-investment into their communities. Projects supported by these premiums include health, education and productivity development and improvement.

Fair Trade and Climate Change

For very good reasons there has been a lot of discussion lately about the contribution a product's food miles makes to climate change. At First Ray we are obviously very passionate about caring for our environment too, however we thought we'd take this opportunity to dispel some of the misconceptions associated with fair trade, food miles and climate change. (Article extracted from First Ray website 23/03/2009)

Most Fairtrade products are transported by air - FALSEMost Fairtrade certified products and all of our products are shipped to Australia by sea. Per mile, international shipping is less carbon intensive than air freight.

Food miles are the biggest element of a product's carbon footprint - FALSETransportation is usually a small proportion of the overall carbon footprint of a product. The carbon footprint includes the method of growing and production, how and where it is sold, the customer journey, the packaging, consumption and final disposal. To draw on UK research - air freight is 0.1% of total carbon emissions, and transportation of Fairtrade products in 2005 was estimated to be just 0.03% of food mile emissions.

Buying locally is always better for the environment - FALSEWhilst buying in season from sustainable local producers can be a very positive way of reducing impact on our climate, it's important to consider not just where a product comes from, but how it has been produced, including use of land, chemicals, hothouses or natural resources. Many everyday items such as

sugar cane, cotton, cocoa, coffee and tea are grown in tropical climates of developing countries with minimal use of carbon-producing energy.

Buying Fairtrade products can help to tackle climate change - TRUE

Buying products from developing countries is vital for their economic and social development and provides a livelihood for millions of farmers and workers. With premiums from Fairtrade, farmers can implement environmental protection programmes that will benefit all of us. In India, tea farmers have invested part

of the Fairtrade premium in a solar panelled heating system for the local health centre, replacing the wood burning one. They have created their own communal compost heap which is used organic fertiliser for the tea bushes.

Source: FTAANZ Fair Square Newsletter (Spring 2007)

So next time you're out somewhere and wondering whether you should support a fairtrade product, even though it may not have been grown or produced locally, we hope your answer is a big and resounding YES!

Learn More and Get Involved

If you'd like to learn more about fair trade or get involved, we recommend some of the following organisations and sites:

Fair Trade Association of Australia and New Zealand - http://www.fairtrade.com.au/
Fairtrade Foundation - http://www.fairtrade.org.uk/
Make Poverty History - www.makepovertyhistory.org.au/home.html