Riddle me this? Starbucks Coffee Bean prices

Why does a half pound (225 g) of Yunnan Coffee cost 85 RMB (12.71 USD) in China? Do we attribute it the Starbucks price bump? Probably not, because you can get twice as much beans for your buck at Starbucks stateside. Around 67 RMB (10 USD) for a full pound (453 g) thats twice as much coffee for a much lower price. And Yunnan Coffee is one of the least expensive worldwide. Just for perspective we offer a half pound of our Yunnan Hope coffee for 29 RMB (4.33 USD) and ours is considered on the "expensive" side because we work with the coffee growers that grow it, paying fair wages and donate part of the sales on top of that to planting more trees. Why is Starbuck's Yunnan coffee 3 times more expensive?

Yunnan Hope

The Coffee story has always begun with the farmers. In Yunnan, many coffee farmers are not paid fair wages for the work they invest into each cup of coffee. Many farmers are struggling to make a living and provide for their families because they are paid as little as ¥1.5 ($0.10) per pound of coffee. Many times large companies and coffee exporters deceive the farmers into signing long contracts forcing farmers to maintain these low prices for long periods of time. In other areas, middleman “coyotes” buy up coffee at very low prices from numerous farms and earn as much as the farmers do for the entire year in one day by simply reselling the beans at higher prices.

Yunnan Hope Coffee is our solution to this growing problem. The sales of this coffee goes directly to help change the system currently in place and ensure that more farmers are paid fair wages. With a commitment to justice and transparency, Chicago Coffee does fair trade in the most basic form. We buy directly from coffee farmers and pay a fair price based on what works for the farmers so they can provide for their families and ensure their children’s education. Many big coffee companies hide the prices they pay and the way they obtain their coffee, and some have even gone as far as to confiscate the farmer’s copies of the contracts they have signed with them to prevent them from changing the system. At CC, we publish all our financial details about how we buy our coffee and exactly how Yunnan Hope Coffee will directly help the farmers of Yunnan.

For more information, please visit www.YunnanHope.com