☕️ Who’s for Coffee? Meet Bird & Wild 🪺
Hi there, our dear neighbours & friends!
We are happy to announce that the coffee that we will serve you at The Sustainable Kitchen Bingham is Bird & Wild - 100% organic, and grow slowly and naturally under the shade canopy of highland rainforests.
- We’ve tested it, and this is our favourite coffee ever! Such unique, chocolatey flavour! But most importantly for us, the coffee is growing in a way that preserves nature and threatened habitats for migratory birds and other wildlife.
After deep research in the coffee industry Rik & I are convinced that this is one of the most considerate companies, making a perfect choice for our sustainable journey.
Bird & Wild are passionate about discovering single estate and small farm coffees of the highest quality, nurtured by farmers who care -making every cup of coffee unique. Find out more about them in this blog post ☺️🌱
🕊 FACTS ABOUT OUR CHOICE: THE BIRD & WILD
1. For every cup of Bird & Wild coffee sold , Sustainable Kitchen will be helping the RSPB, the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Centre and the Fairtrade Foundation as Bird & Wild is working in partnership with the RSPB, 6% of sales is donated to the RSPB to help give nature a home, as well as being Certified Fairtrade and Organic.
2. Bird & Wild only roasts seasonal coffee certified as Bird Friendly and Shade-Grown by the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Centre and contributes to support their research and conservation programs.
3. Coffees are naturally grown under the rainforest canopy, a haven for birds and other wildlife and ideal conditions for nurturing deliciously different beans with a taste of the wild. Under the shade of the tropical highland rainforests, coffee is allowed to grow slowly in wild conditions to develop complex, distinctive and smooth flavours.
4. Bird & Wild are proud to be certified by the Smithsonian Institution as Bird Friendly™ coffees.
WHAT IS SHADE GROWN COFFEE?
Traditionally coffee was grown commercially under other trees that provided shade. Indeed, in its natural wild state, coffee much prefers shade in the heat of the tropics.
However, since the 1970s, new sun-tolerant coffee plants have been developed with the aim to yield higher production rates to produce larger yields through higher-density, open planting over huge areas of land. Unfortunately, this cultivation practices of open planting is completely unsustainable, destroys the land through overexposure to the sun and has a negative impact on the environment that is often not talked enough about.
As a result, the concept of Shade Grown Coffee, a return to traditional coffee farming, was born. A canopy of assorted types of shade trees is created to cultivate shade-grown coffee, which incorporates principles of natural ecology to promote natural ecological relationships.
WHY BIRD & WILD COFFEE?
Aside from the great taste of Bird & Wild’s Fairtrade Organic Bird-Friendly Shade Grown Coffee, here are some bite size benefits to the world:
- It helps plant diversity with typically 90 to 120 species of plant and 13 to 58 species of tree on a single site. Herb diversity is typically 3 to 4 times higher as well.
- It helps insect diversity with 609 species of insect found in a Shade Grown Coffee site in Mexico.
- It helps both native and migratory bird species diversity. For example, 184 bird species (including 46 migratory bird species) were found on a single Shade Grown Coffee site in Mexico. This compares with as few as 6-12 bird species found in unshaded coffee monocultures.
- In a study of shade vs. sun coffee comparisons in Guatemala, overall bird abundance and diversity were 30% greater, respectively, in shaded farms than sun farms. Indeed, shade-grown trees housed two-thirds of the bird species found in natural forests in the same geographic area.
- Shade Grown Coffee promotes mammal diversity. For example, a Shade Grown Coffee site in India found 28 species of mammals in one site alone.
- Many species of bees are attracted to shaded polycultures that have a variety of flowering plants in
addition to coffee. In a shade grown study in Indonesia, bee populations rose by 90%. It protects soil. The presence of canopy and midstory vegetation in shaded polycultures helps reduce soil erosion as well stabilize steep, mountainous slopes. Typically, soil moisture is 42% lower in unshaded plantations than in shaded plantations and there is significantly less runoff of surface water in shaded plantations than in unshaded plantations.
- It acts as a carbon sink. Just like natural forests, the carbon sequestered in a shade‐grown coffee farm’s shade trees will be stored in the tree trunks, limbs, leaves, and roots of the foliage as opposed to being in the atmosphere and adding to global warming.
(source of information https://birdandwild.co.uk )
As you can see from all of the points made above, Bird & Wild perfectly fits with our vision which is to have a positive impact on the planet every time you drink or eat at the Sustainable Kitchen.♻️
We are ever so exited to welcome you soon…
Coffee anyone?😉☕️
Tim xx
Creative Director
The Sustainable Kitchen