The start of the Nepalese calendar is different than ours but it is celebrated in much the same manner within this historic Himalayan country. Much like our New Year, Nepalese celebrate a day of new begginings, new hope, new thought, new light, new dreams, new aims and a New Year with dancing, music, singing and goodwill.

HAPPY  NEW YEAR NEPAL!

If your office is experiencing the same coffee headaches, please contact us about our BULK coffee delivery service. We are more than happy to help! info@tcnepal.com

All our favorite popular loose leaf teas:

Japanese sencha, White silver tips, Nepalese assam, Earl Grey and even some of our traditional Ayurvedic teas will be made into delicious and pro-biotic, immune boosting Kombucha.

These will be available to purhcase direct through our new website and Mandala Cafe, opening in February!!

Click on the picture above for Baker County's Community Events Calendar

Baker City is one of Eastern Oregon’s best cooperatives and they have just expanded! They are now offering organic, fair trade Himalayan coffee! Baker City is home to the annual Baker City Fair and is one of the true gems of Eastern Oregon. Look for our full-city blend in their bulk isle next time you visit. They also have a great, informative website with lots of money-saving, shopping tips!

Baker City Food Co-op

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While coffees sold on the international market can be volatile, the Fair Trade price “minimum” offers greater price stability and a sustainable income for farmers.

Visit our booth at the Chief Joseph Days Rodeo, near the majestic foothills of the Wallowa Mountains! Experience fresh-roasted coffee, direct from small family farms in the Central Nepal Himalayas. Our gourmet blends are made with 100% organic and fairly traded beans that help support cooperative farms in Sumatra, Peru, Columbia, Nepal and Ethiopia. Small farms are sustainable, help us sustain them for more generations!

info@tcnepal.com 

Portland Rose Festival Association is one of the largest civic-run, volunteer-based community festivals. It encorporates both traditional and modern events. The festival brings together participants, volunteers and civic leaders from across the country who enjoy Portland for it’s beautiful green trees and Oregon sunshine! Please enjoy the events throughout the week-long festival and stop by our booth along our historic Waterfront Park in downtown Portland.

For details on main event tickets, event dates and times, please visit the Portland Rose Festival’s official website.

For more detailed event information, to register or for directions to the festival, please visit the Upper Clackamas Whitewater Festival official website. 

 The World Fair Trade Day event will be celebrated by numerous people across the globe in light of the evolving enterprises that help create long-term relationships that foster cultural and ethical international trade.

Take time out on World Fair Trade Day to enjoy a cup of fair trade coffee or tea, tell your friends about the importance of fair trade and the impact it makes in the lives of people in over 50 countries of the south who receive a living wage for their work and the ability to educate their children.

Fair trade is so much more than paying a living wage, it helps foster respect for indigenuos culture and knowledge, it provides avenues for women to be self-employed, it allows children to go to school and most importantly, brings dignity back to people living in poverty.

For more information on this year’s Fair Trade’s international focus on ECOLOGY, please visit the Fair Trade Resource Network.

Many issues are on hand, including how many women will be represented in the democratically-run goverment. Below is an article about women’s struggles to help give voices to some of Nepal’s most important issues, including child welfare. Women must win seats in Nepal’s new, democratic parliament in order to make universal issues take on the precedence they deserve!

Minority groups of indigenous peoples across the nation are staging peaceful protests to call attention to their unique concerns about a government that has long-neglected the needs of Nepal’s rural farming families.

 Women candidates appeal to voters from Kantipur-Online

Resources include: International and national fair trade certification organizations Regional fair trade companies and stores in the Pacific Northwest Book reviews and product reviews Interviews with fair trade leaders, companies and volunteers in our community

Pacific Fair Trade BLOG 

 The 12 oz. size is perfect for the kitchen counter and our handmade paper labels help provide further economic opportunity to Nepal’s burgeoning cottage paper-making industry. The paper is not only beautiful to the eyes, but the softness and texture of handmade paper is a treat to hold. Made from the bark of the local Daphne shrub, this paper is a sustainable by-product of our organic farms. It provides additional income to the women’s groups who make it.  Multiple roasts are available, including our newest addition to the Himalayan line of coffees: NEPALOPIAN, a spicy, aromatic and thoroughly satisfying brew for the senses, roasted medium-dark. Try this fair trade, organic blend of Ethiopian yergacheffe and Nepal caturra in a re-cyclable, re-sealable, re-usable tin can!   Wholesale orders only: sales@tcnepal.com 

Old Pine Market now carries fresh-roasted Himalayan coffee. We are happy to help keep residents warm and healthy during the bitter winters of NE Oregon. Make sure you stop by the market and buy a couple 1# bags next time you venture out East.

According to the United Nations Council on Trade and Development, current trade rules have contributed to an increase in poverty and unemployment in developing countries and have widened income gaps between rich and poor both within and between countries. While poor countries have had to lower trade barriers for transnational corporations, the rich countries have not taken comparable actions to allow exports from these countries into their markets. The poor, therefore, suffer from “free” but unfair trade. We, consumers in the economically strong nations of our world, can initiate change into a “fair trade” market that benefits more than the world’s strong economies.

Small and medium-sized companies who have made fair trade a model for alternative, international trade and realized the power the fair trade movement has by capturing more and more of the mainstream buyer market here in the U.S. are not alone.

Now companies such as McDonald’s, who have debuted a fair trade line of coffees in the NE region of North America; Nestle, who has invested in a brand of fair trade chocolates, are taking advantage of fair trade. How is the definition of fair trade kept as a progressive and sincere movement when transnational companies get involved?

Many organizations both international and national, help companies certify agriculture products and handicrafts as authentic. However, it takes more than a fair price paid to a group of small farmers or fair wage for handicrafts produced in order for a company to be fair. It is more than the principles listed by certification organizations that make trade more than the same “free” trade system. Fair trade is a continuous struggle and forthright commitment to finding the richness in cultural and ethical exchange, not the profits generated or number of products certified.

For many producers and artisans working in the fair trade market, it means a livelihood and opportunity for a better life, but it should also mean a trend towards valuing the intangible gifts of language, culture and diversity that make our world great. It is up to each consumer who participates, to make the informed decisions on which companies have a true, long-term commitment to these intangibles, to determine where and what our “fair trade” system brings into our lives. We all must choose wisely, for free- marketing of fair trade could mean the beginning or the end of meaningful fair trade for everyone.

This article, in the September 19th, 2007 edition of the Hokkaido Shimbun Press, (Japan’s second-largest daily newspaper) featured news about HTCC’s commitment to fair trade prices for sustainable, organic-quality harvests of Nepalese cattura and the long-term benefits fair trade has. The cultural and social impacts on both sides of the exchange–from farmers and artisans, directly to U.S. consumers makes every participant in fair trade a winner!

Japanese people drink more of the aromatic, robust and tangy Himalayan brew than any other country in the world. Unfortunately, most Japanese importers are not currently known for participating in fair trade practices. We hope this article in the Hokkaido Shimbun Press raises awareness about fair trade’s importance and Japanese consumers start demanding fair trade Nepalese coffee in their market.

Special thanks to Toshimi Edagawa, Bureau Chief of the Portland-branch of the SP-Press for writing an article about fair trade!

Enjoy the expanding number of products that pay a living wage, companies who establish long-term relationships with artisans and farmers, helping create economic opportunity that in turn, helps them develop education programs, sanitation and clean water systems for their communities overseas.

In Guatemala, a coffee mill has been built, not by farmers, but by concerned fair traders who see the lack of services in milling available and a need for timely payments for their work on harvesting coffee.

This mill means that farmers no longer have to pay the costly expense of transport in order to get their coffee fruits to market. They no longer have to wait until there is a buyer for their beans, the cooperative, small farmer mill pays them for their fruit immediately upon receipt of their harvest.

Oftentimes, farmers have no alternative but to take out loans from the coop to complete these necessary steps. With this advanced infrastructure of a mill and service provided through fair trade, they are able to concentrate their time on getting their children to school on time and building social justice within their town.