Can I have a cup of coffee, please? // Product photography.

 

Coffee. How many of can't literally live without a cup of coffee in the morning? Many. One of the best and worst drugs at the same time, one of the best and worst habits, one of the most delicious and sometimes tasteless liquids we ever have drunk!

The coffee industry is global and it affects the environment by our consumption of coffee, but many say the coffee industry is one of the easiest we can improve for sustainability. Coffee causes deforestation. You will question it, but go to google and do your own research, but let's go straight to what we can do to improve it? Let's buy "shade-grown" coffee, often grown on small farms using traditional techniques. Read here more: shade-grown coffee.  And I would suggest always look for fairtrade coffee out there, but I guess this is another new wide topic that the green logo has become a trend to use rather than actually offering an environmentally friendly product, but this is on the seller's shoulders/karma.

Or in general let's simply keep coffee for special occasions and start mornings with warm lemon water or green tea (I have practised it, after settling in the new habit around 2 months, you forget about coffee morning need: habit article). Cutting down coffee usage we help to our health and healthy environment.

But do you know that its silly to throw away coffee grains? I love to use them for making different scrubs for my skin, and use for the right vegetable boxes in the garden. Coffee grain scrubs often helped me to deal with my irritating face-skin problem back when I travelled/hitchhiked on super low budget. So coffee can be used in many ways for not wasting it!

Me and coffee. All my teenage life I imagined that when I will be a student in twenties one of my first jobs definitely will be working in a cafe! But that was the early 2000s thinking, I did not know when I will hit the that "I am now twenties teenager", cafe and coffee industry will have changed so much that being a barista will actually be a hip-hop-cool-yo job, that you will even need a certification (barista schools) to even apply for such job! I was shocked when hit the reality, or I also never ended up in the right place and time? Who knows, but I still dream for this profession to be on my CV, even though I have some sort of cafe/barista jobs from festival works.

So then how did I get into this cafe if by not working there? One day I decided to ask this man who had recently opened a new artisian cafe Espressini in my previous student town Falmouth, UK if I could take some promotional-kind-photos for his cafe, just an interest for myself and a practice to work with a client. He kindly accepted and the fun began! I tasted so many delicious different mocas, lattes and cortados and so on and on, that I was in a coffee paradise. The owner and his staff were kind-hearted people with warmth and love, and passion for coffee. Now my memory is blurry on his story how and why he began a new cafe in a very studenty town, but let's just say - a man and his dream is unstoppable!

Here I have probably uploaded/shared with tons of unneeded photographs as not all of them I could say have a good visual approach/perspective, but even sometimes a bad photo gives a feeling of overall atmosphere.

Sustainable coffee in my private life.

• I don't buy a coffee from small run-in-out shops without seeing what coffee brand they have.
• At home, I use a bit pricey ecological coffee, but it is worth the money.
• I use the good-kind filter which also a bit costs few kronors/pennies, but it's all for good health!
• Also, there are periods in a year when I don't really drink morning coffee, but find alternatives. Except during winter, I've noticed, I need my morning coffee first. I guess its the Scandinavian living?
• I use only Oatly Ikaffe milk (oat milk). I live in Sweden, and we have this, I don't know what you have in other countries, but I have found that oatmilk as vegan milk works the best for coffee... Soymilk, no thank you!
• Few times in a month I reuse the coffee grains making some bathroom cosmetics. Not yet for gardening, but spring is coming, so, a bit yes. 
• That old-school piece of a butter in a coffee thing, you know, yes?, well, sometimes I add a bit of coconut oil in my coffee - it says it has an energy boost meaning, maybe yes, maybe not, but I enjoy the taste of it too (without any milk then). A healthy cuppa!
• How to consume better coffee? I personally avoid big-global cafe chains...but try something local, smaller, independent, created by love and passion cafe type. <3
   
• Which country is the most addicted to caffeine?
  
  

  1) Sweden: 388mg/day

  2) Norway: 379mg/day

  3) Netherlands: 369mg/day
  
  I guess the Nordics hit the tops because of the long darkness during the year, and the coffee has that magic we want to drink during the darker season which gives nice fake-ish energy happiness boost so then we crave for it more not realizing we are addicted to it? Oh, I am sure that is for sure why my brain NEEDS coffee during winter months as first thing in the morning. :)
   

I probably have forgotten some other "sustainable living" suggestions as for when I started living more consciously I did not make notes or a blog on it, so, some things have become so 'normal in everyday life', that simply don't think it's a different way of doing things. I know I could also discuss what is a better way to taste coffee using this or that machine and so on, but in each country where I have lived, I had a different coffee-making habit. Also that I am a fan of simple coffee with milk or cortados!

If you have your own way of consuming coffee environmentally friendly, let me know, share with me!

I used Espressini cafe coffee cups to create some artistic creative photo!

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

ELINA NOMAD PHOTOGRAPHY

Do you want I do a similar photography work for you?
Or private couple or family portrait session?

Message me on my fb page or visualnoteselina@gmail.com

Photo IG // Adventure IG