Up For a Cup?

I was contacted recently by Tamara, a representative from Puro coffee.  Never heard of them? Neither had I, but she was ready and willing to introduce this brand to me and my readers. A generous package of coffees, a mini French press and coffee cup arrived shortly. Since Jason, the Director of Creative Services at work, and I often talk coffee, I shared my bounty with him and his family, and the taste-testing began. 

While Jason said he picked up on some of the flavor notes described on the packaging, I was content with the comfort a good cup of coffee brings. The coffee is obviously roasted well, apparently a difficult feat for some companies. While I may not pick up on "citrus-y" or "chocolate-y" flavor notes, I often pick up on the flavor of burnt coffee beans. This does not make for a comforting cup of coffee. 

While I was appreciative of the bounty I received from Puro, the back-story of this company really got my attention. Tamara sent along the following information. It's a bit lengthy, but full of so much great information, I just couldn't decide what to cull it down to. Here is all the info she sent. There are some wonderful links you will definitely want to explore.

Thank you, Tamara. If you were here, I'd invite you in for a cup of coffee. You know it would be a good cup!:

A large number of your coffee drinking readers might not have heard of us before as we don’t have our own cafes and you won’t find us in supermarkets, nevertheless, if they drink coffee, then they will have probably enjoyed ours without realising it was us! Every National Trust site uses our coffee, restaurants like Gourmet Burger Kitchen and The Real Greek, large offices such as Innocent Drinks (the smoothie company), hairdressers like Headmasters and golf clubs like Wentworth all serve our coffee.

Through the Puro brand, alongside Fairtrade, we want to communicate the threat to rainforest and the need to preserve it. After oil, coffee is the second most traded commodity in the world, so imagine the amount of coffee consumed every day all over the world. By putting messages on our cups and sharing our stories and videos with our clients and consumers, we think we can help make a difference. We also want to show other companies that people and planet are just as important as profit. In order to help spread this message, it would be amazing if you were able to embed our short film (4.5mins long) within your review.

http://vimeo.com/fairtradecoffee/our-story or to all of our short films on Vimeo http://vimeo.com/fairtradecoffee
 
http://www.purocoffee.com/us/

http://www.purocoffee.com/us/fairtrade-coffee

http://www.purocoffee.com/us/saving-rainforest

Our Facebook page, where we share all our feel good stories and offer a monthly competition to win a gift box just like the one we sent you is http://www.facebook.com/fairtradecoffee

 

Puro Fairtrade Coffee is a brand from a company called Miko who has been roasting coffee in Belgium for 212 years now. It was created in 2005.
 

Miko has 9000m2 of solar panels on the roof of their building to generate their own electricity.

In 2007 whilst some of the Puro Fairtrade Coffee team were trekking through the Puro Ecuadorian Rainforest Reserve, some new species of orchid were discovered. One of these orchids was later named after us http://www.purocoffee.com/uk/saving-rainforest/orchid

In 2008, together with Sir David Attenborough, we launched a webcam in the rainforest to the media

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2008/jan/18/webcamintheforest
http://www.worldlandtrust.org/news/2008/01/sir-david-attenborough-presented-with.htm

Miko won a business charity award last year for the partnership between Puro Fairtrade Coffee and World Land Trust (we have gone on to help judge the 2013 Business Charity Awards)

http://www.thirdsector.co.uk/Fundraising/article/1131933/business-charlated-marketing-winner-miko-coffee-world-land-trust/ity-awar (I know they have made a typo in their url!)

Located within Chocó, Colombia. The 124 acre Puro Poison Frog Reserve is the only protected location in the world for the critically endangered and close to extinct Golden Poison Frog. Indigenous tribes still use their poison on their arrows and spears for hunting.

http://purocoffee.com/uk/saving-rainforest/poison-frog