Good Coffee is always a Blend

There is another approach to this - grow the perfect coffee, and use it alone, without mixing it with coffee from anywhere else.

This was the approach taken by Cafe Christina, a little coffee farm close to where I live. An American couple bought this farm, and proceeded to improve it - mainly by making it very organic.

Organic farming was also tried by my family, in their little plot of land, in Nauvoo, Illinois. This had religious meaning for them - keeping yourself pure from the world.

This religious conviction was not shared by my Uncle Ourth, who had his own farm, on shores of the Mississippi River, just a mile from our house. He sprayed his crops, using powerful chemicals to kill the insects that were eating his crops. As a special favor for us, he sprayed our orchard also.

He thought organic farming was a fine idea - but impractical. You had to produce the most fruit, at the lowest cost.

As it turned out, this argument was never settled, because the owners both died - taking their farms with them.