posted 9 years ago
I find that free coffee grounds make the best compost.
Free, and also plentiful. Those are the two qualities I look for in my coffee grounds.
I jest.
When you see how coffee is produced, it's hard to imagine that any insecticides or herbicides would ever make it from the farm to your garden. I lived in a coffee producing region of Africa for years, and have seen how it's grown. First, most farmers aren't using much by way of chemical inputs. A bit of fertilizer at the start of growing season, but not much thereafter. I don't remember anyone spraying for bugs, or anyone using a herbicide. It's a relatively pest free tree. So from the start, the end product (coffee) isn't exposed to much if any harmful chemicals.
Once the ripe berries were picked, they were placed in baskets to soak in the stream. That would loosen the husk around the been. They would run the semi-fermented berries through a de-husking machine and the raw beans would be separated from the husk. At that point, anything that might have been sprayed on the tree and berry would be long gone --- washed, fermented and husked away. Those beans were set on mats to dry in the hot sun for a week or more. Again, further breaking down what ever chemicals might be present.
Then the raw beans are roasted, further breaking down whatever chemicals might have been hitch-hiking. Hot water is run through the coffee grounds. And finally, it makes its way to your compost pile to undergo further fermentation and microbial attack.
Would there even be a fraction of a trace of harmful insecticides or herbicides that would make it through all that? All those steps along the way, particularly the fermentation, drying, roasting, grinding, brewing and then composting would seem to me to take care of whatever traces might remain. AND THEN --- it goes onto or into your soil, for further decomposition and "attack" by the microbial herd.
"Organic" coffee is a bit like "organic" avocados. Avocados don't need anything -- no fertilizer or insecticide is ever needed -- so buying an organic avocado is a rip-off if you are playing more than any normal avocado. Coffee is much the same, as far as I understand. Perhaps I'm wrong and I'm open to input and correction here, but having seen it grown and processed, I don't think that we are talking about Round-Up Ready GMO Corn, saturated in all the worst stuff Monsanto can create in their dark labs.
"The rule of no realm is mine. But all worthy things that are in peril as the world now stands, these are my care. And for my part, I shall not wholly fail in my task if anything that passes through this night can still grow fairer or bear fruit and flower again in days to come. For I too am a steward. Did you not know?" Gandolf