Change the world, one mochaccino at a time

When you fancy a break from sitting around doing not very much, where do you go?

If, like so many of us, you’ve developed an unhealthy and expensive caffeine addiction, then you’ll probably head to a coffee shop, where you’ll pay a premium to sit and do not very much with an espresso machine whirring loudly in the background as you while away an hour or so of your day wondering if this constitutes more than a ‘nice break’.

‘Shhhh’

But as you drink your coffee, perhaps you wonder where it comes from? Were the coffee beans roasted using renewable, non-polluting fuel? Did the pecans in that pie arrive by air freight? Are you personally responsible for depleting the ozone layer with the nitrogen oxide released by such planes? Will your paper cup be recycled? Were the people who picked those basil leaves paid adequately?

We’ve done some research so you can sip that cappuccino complacently, safe in the knowledge that it doesn’t make you a bad person.

Turl Street Kitchen http://www.turlstreetkitchen.co.uk/xwiki/bin/view/TSK/

The Bike Cafe’s coffee is supplied by Ue Coffee Roasters, who are based in Witney and use wood from Blenheim palace to fire their wood roaster (coffee of Winston Churchill?). They use local suppliers and recycle their waste effectively.

If you’re a fan of the chain, multi-national conglomerates, then you can enjoy your latte in Pret with a clean conscience, knowing the crayfish salad you decided against buying will be donated to the Gatehouse homeless shelter at the end of the day. Same goes for Pizza Hut 🙂

The Hog Roast, in Hogacre Common Eco-Park, is an exciting new cafe which will strive to be Oxford’s most environmentally friendly café. It will be heated by a wood burner fueled by wood from the woodland, with all food sourced locally- even roasting its coffee beans itself and growing its own mushrooms.