Banned Wagon | 1 January 1970
'Fair trade' coffee has become as much a staple of the middle-class kitchen as organic carrots and free-range eggs. But, for the fair-trade lobby, voluntary gestures are not enough. They are lobbying the US government, with some signs of success, to establish a 'coffee purity act'. Under these provisions, all raw or 'green' coffee imported to America would have to show a moisture content of between 8 and 13 per cent and would have to contain no extraneous matter such as leaves and twigs. Few would fancy a twig or two floating around in their cappuccino, but that is not the point.