Chimps don’t like coffee. (Perhaps it’s an evolved taste?) But they’re the happy beneficiaries of a new line of single origin coffees championed by Dr. Jane Goodall, who has been living among the chimps of Tanzania’s Gombe Reserve for almost 50 years.
Concerned about how continued deforestation was threatening the chimps’ habitat, Goodall formed a partnership with Green Mountain Coffee of Waterbury, Vt., to give farmers an incentive to grow coffee, a crop that thrives in the shade of the tropical tree canopy. The more trees they let stand, the better the coffee crop, the greater their income.
“This is win, win, win, win — I lose track of the number of wins,” said Goodall, speaking at the Speciality Coffee Association of America’s international convention.