Equal Exchange Cooperative Head Quarters

Equal Exchange is popular here on the West Coast among imports stores, and churches that pride themselves on purveying fair trade coffee. They often work with congregations, so one can go to a Unitarian, Lutheran (as in ELCA) and Presbyterian (as in PCUSA) congregation and buy a pound of coffee. The Baksheesh imports store on the Sonoma Plaza also carries it.
Equal Exchange makes excellent chocolate bars. Their hot cocoa has had an odd aftertaste… I haven’t had it in awhile, and I do want to taste their chili cocoa. Their coffees are flavorful.
Tastes good and does good too!

This review is solely based on their organic dark chocolate. Despite of not being a fan of dark chocolate as personally, I’m a milk chocolate lover Equal Exchange’s 55% cacao content is quite appetitizing.
Equal Exchange is kosher-​pareve certified in Switzerland, organic produced in a sustainable concerned eco-​friendly environment. This West Bridgewater, MA location is Equal Exchange’s headquarter office.

This is a review of Equal Exchange tea bags. Specifically this is a very anal review of their organic English Breakfast Tea. I’ve been looking for a good reliable source of teabags for home since I got to the USA as my massive English supply is dwindling and I can’t be arsed with loose tea when I drink so many cups a day. So I thought I’d try this Equal Exchange tea as it’s available easily for me (Harvest Co-​op in Cambridge) and they are a local company and so probably are more dependable batch-​for-​batch than all those ones from Oregon.
For nearly 4 bucks I got 25 bags — pretty expensive actually, but these are Fair Trade and organic so maybe the money is going to the right places rather than to Unilever or Proctor and Gamble. The box is a nice design but maybe there is a little too much packaging. But never mind that, onto the taste test…
I pitched EE’s teabags up against the behemoth of English Breakfast tea that is Marks and Spencer’s Extra Strong round teabags — brought back in England at a much cheaper price per bag yet also fair trade. This would be a tough contest as the M&S teabags are the Yankees of supermarket EB tea — they have the tradition, they’re consistent without being too flashy and they usually win. To make the fight even more interesting I went luxury-​style and used pan-​boiled Volvic water. This makes a big difference as the water you use drastically effects your tea. If you want the best tea, tap water won’t do (too much crap), electric-​kettle boiled water won’t do (too much crap in the kettle), filtered water, Aquafina, Dasani won’t do (not enough minerals to pull out the flavour) — you need genuine mineral water that has a good amount of minerals and yet a soft taste. I read a while ago that tea aficionados in Hong Kong determined this to be Volvic, with it’s volcanic minerals. Evian sucked — wrong kind of minerals! My advice to you is give Volvic a go once in your life if you like your tea — it really does have an amazing effect.
Ok, back on subject — once the Volvic had boiled and cooled down a bit I let it loose on the rival teabags for a minute or two with a little stir. A minute or so later it was tasting time… EE’s tasted good… mmm lovely Volvic tea. Yum. M&S’s also tasted good… but a little worse! What was it? It was too strong that’s what — too bitter! So EE was ahead… but wait, I have my tea with milk. So in goes the splash of 2% (never give me half-​n-​half in tea — urghhh). And now what? Well EE’s still tastes very good, but M&S’s is now on par, maybe edging ahead. And by the end of the mug… yep M&S now is definitely the preferred cuppa — the EE just couldn’t hack the big player and ended up with a slightly acidy foretaste. But honestly, it was a close one… and for that I salute you Equal Exchange organic English Breakfast, you fought a valiant battle and your tea would have won through had I not insisted on milk. Have yourself a four-​star organic fair trade medal.