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For many churches, coffee has become a fundamental piece of their identity, whether it's offered during Sunday morning services or served throughout the week in a church-operated café or coffee shop. So the question isn't whether they'll offer coffee, but rather, what kind of coffee they'll offer.

That question is more intriguing than ever as attention grows for fair-trade coffee.

A coffee labeled as "fair trade" means the workers who grow and sell it are paid a fair price. To be fair-trade certified, the coffee must meet specific certification criteria, but the most important factor for the grower is the price.

Troy Jackson, pastor of University Christian Church in Cincinnati, Ohio, became an expert on fair-trade coffee because of his ministry. In 2003, University Christian—located within walking distance of the University of Cincinnati—renovated its building and moved its café from the basement to the main floor. After the renovation, the church opened Rohs Street Café. It was the first coffeehouse in the city to offer only fair-trade coffee.

"In Guatemala, there are seven families that dominate the coffee-growing industry," Jackson says. "These families have vast coffee-growing plantations, and it's hard for a small grower to get a place at the table. [Fair-trade certified coffee] must be grown by a community; it can't be a corporation. It also has to be a co-op, and they have to reinvest some of the money in community projects in their neighborhood."

Most importantly, from an evangelical perspective, fair-trade coffee certification ensures workers aren't exploited. Coffee is the second-most traded commodity in the world after oil, so it's "not a small deal to seek justice around coffee," Jackson says.

"There are stories during picking season of growers not being allowed to leave the plantation," he says. "It almost approaches slave labor. It can happen in a place like Guatemala, and it's sort of under the radar. Fair trade can break through that, because you know the people picking the coffee are not being exploited."

University Christian took the concept a step further, partnering with a Guatemalan village called Santa Maria de Jesus to form a direct-trade relationship that produces La Armonia Hermosa (The Beautiful Harmony).

"We know the farmers and have a relationship with them," Jackson says. "We have a missionary from our church who works with coffee. He spends nine months in the states and three months working with the growers, developing processing equipment in Santa Maria."

University Christian chooses to pay above fair-trade price to the growers in Santa Maria.

"It's shameful to learn the amount of money that actually goes to the person that grows the coffee," Jackson says. "The grower doesn't get all the income; part of it goes for processing. It's an expensive process to get from the red 'cherry' to the green unroasted bean. The more that can be done by the growers themselves, the bigger cut they get."

University Christian is teaching the growers in Santa Maria how to process the coffee. That could increase the growers' income threefold, he says.

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