The Ethical Bean Coffee Company

The main office HQ of ethical bean coffee.
Friendly staff with a decent range of coffee types. The décor is light and simplistic. The patio, though nice, is next to the highway. That’s something they can’t control, but you don’t notice it.
The coffees are well made, with a clover machine available if you fancy that. There is no fancy slow drip pour over coffee — aka not a hipster coffee joint. They have a reward system for coffee purchases as well as a free coffee with every 1lb of coffee purchased. They also provide a recycle bin for their coffee bags which is in line with their ethical stance on coffee.
The food is decent but not prepared on site. It’s functional and not that bad. Props for the veggie breakfast wrap, croissants, and breakfast sandwiches as they are all pretty delicious.
For what this is, I think they do quite well.

Aside from 49^th Parallel. I like to drink ethical bean coffee. Depending on the barista, I flavor this flavor, especially the decafe line. Easy and smooth, especially for lattes.

Great place to get your morning coffee and a bite, I love that chai latte and the lemon loaf. So good!

* Nice coffee — but stinky attitude *
I’ve been enjoying Ethical Bean Coffee at the Little Mountain Café (
) quite a bit, and also liking the donuts which Ethical Bean provides them with.
So when I was in the area I figured I would go straight to the source and check out their company run café which is adjacent to their offices.
The setting is in a corporate park, not the best vibe for a café, but it makes sense for their headquarters. I could get past that. What I can’t get past was the pissy attitude of the woman working there. Sorry for interrupting your day and ordering a coffee!
The espresso was fine, but left me with a sour taste (from the service, not the coffee). Photo:
I’ll continue to drink your coffee, just not at your café!

Is this café is hidden gem? I only see five reviews and none recently. Ethical Beans is literally hidden in an industrial area beside Bosa Foods. Thus, it has an industrial vibe but modern décor. It’s very minimalist with a couple of cozy chairs, bench, and a stand for the creams. I love the free self serve ice water at the entrance, great welcoming touch! They operate on 4 principals:
1. Fair-​trade
–they only sell Fair trade certified coffee, meaning the coffee producers are paid a guaranteed price based on their production cost and not on the volatile free market price. As a return, the coffee producers must follow Fair trade regulation and form a cooperative. These co-​ops must meet and follow predetermined labour, environmental, and quality standards. That means no forced or child labour! Yeah, I’m a fan of no slave labour! I can drink my espresso without a guilty conscious.
2. Organic
–Ethical Bean only serves certified organic and shade grown coffee. Organic obviously meaning no pesticides. What about this shade growing business? Does it mean farmers can harvest their crop in the shade without exposure to harmful UV rays? No, actually it means coffee grown in the shade grows slower, is more sustainable, and taste better then grown fully exposed to the sun.
3. Community minded
–owners support many outreach programs and donate a lot to nonprofit organizations internationally and locally. The couple co-​founders even adopted a daughter from Guatemala which shows their commitment.
4. Environmentally aware
–besides environmentally good practises, they collect used coffee bags from customers. Next time, instead of chucking your used coffee bag in the trash, save it and give it to Ethical Beans either in person or via mail. They even accept competitors’ bags too. They are actually just storing it in their facilities until a solution is found on how to recycle it.
As for the coffee, top quality. I usually drink their espresso or Americano as I’m a purist when it comes to coffee. The espresso is very smooth in consistency with no bitterness.
They only sell whole coffee beans as they encourage grinding the coffee fresh to get the best flavour. You can also use their iPhone app, it scans the emark on the coffee bag and provides a cool history of that particular blend from where it was grown and who picked the beans to you hands. I’m guessing the bag I bought today was not from Juan Valdez himself.
They also served up some great organic doughnuts with all the ingredients from certified organic producers. That’s right, the eggs, milk, flour, salt, baking powder; all organic. Mix that up with creative ingredients like lavender and pumpkin, and you get some good tasting guilt free doughnuts.
For being so ethically minded, you definitely deserve a 4.5 star!

I love all things about Lavender — Lavender Aromatherapy Oil and Candles, Lavender Honey, Lavender Floral Tea, Lavender Scones and now — I have found my New LOVE — Organic Lavender Doughnuts!!! Being a Lavender Lover and an Organic Freak — this doughnut is a «Match Made In Heaven». Ethical Bean is the world’s first in serving Fair Trade Certified Organic doughnut. This lovely doughnut are available at The Ethical Bean Café and Roastery on 1315 Kootenay Street as well as the Ethical Bean Xpress locations at Granville and Commercial Skytrain stations and also at selective Whole Foods Locations in Vancouver.
Ethical Bean makes their scrumptious doughnuts fresh daily with unique flavours like Lavender, Pumpkin, Eggnog, Maple, Espresso Sugar or Espresso Chocolate Glaze and Oprah Magazine’s favourite Ginger glaze with exotic spices. Ethical Bean puts a modern twist on these classic heart-​warming treats. For my visit, I tried:
Lavender Glazed ($ 1.29) — This old fashion plain doughnut is lightly coated with a Vanilla Lavender Glazed. The doughnut is soft and moist and since it is an old fashion doughnut — it is a little dense. I love the light and fragrant lavender glaze — it is not too sweet nor heavy. Biting into this delectable treat brings me back to the relaxing time I had at the Alii Kula Lavender Farm in Maui, Hawaii.
Expresso Sugar ($ 1.29) — Caoco old fashion doughnut coated with espresso powder and sugar. I love the cruchy and crusty coating the aromatic expresso powder and sugar created while contrasted with the soft and moist texture of the doughnut.
Overall, I really enjoyed Ethical Bean’s delectable doughnut since it is not too sweet nor heavy — I feel less guilty about eating these guilty pleasures. I also love their unique flavours and that is is 100% Fair Trade Certified Organic. If you are a Krispy Kreme lover, then this is probably not your type of doughnut.

I’ve known Ethical Bean’s founders for a long time now. Our kids used to go to the same school. When I first met Lloyd Bernhardt & Kim Schacte, they were getting things moving, identity-​wise, coffee-​guru-​wise, and business-​wise. Kim & Lloyd have backgrounds that really help put the pieces together for any business – Lloyd comes from an IT consulting background and Kim’s a graphic designer, so problem solving and elegant solutions loom large in their Word Clouds.
What makes Ethical Bean different than virtually any other roaster/​coffee wholesaler is in the name. Ethical. Today’s review is prompted by the event I attended this morning at the EB-​HQ – Vancouver’s monthly LikeMind meet-​up, every third Friday at a different coffee place somewhere in the Greater Vancouver area. And the work they do in Guatemala, helping schools operate, and ensuring that coffee growers get a good price for their products, is the real thing. There is no greenwashing here; it goes right to the heart of the company and the people.
But that’s not really why I’m writing this. The people at Ethical Bean know and love coffee, and they also know and love seeing what goes well with coffee, as the much anticipated donuts have proved.
Lavender dusted? Crystallized ginger? Oh, mama. These are wholesomely wicked. And donut holes as well. I’ll dispense with the wholesome holes pun. Or the «I can’t believe I ate the hole thing» because that wouldn’t play unless you’re a student of the history of advertising.
Great coffee. Great presentation. Great snacks. Just great. And not because I know the owners, although they’re great too.

Very cool café hidden in an industrial area. They roast up the fair trade, organics, yeah, but they also serve up a mean little cup of excellence.
The café itself is really quite nice inside and the service is good.
If you pair up shopping at nearby Bosa Foods, this is a good thing to schedule in to your day.
*You can also find a coffee truck serving Ethical Bean at the East Van Farmers Market, (every second Sat.)
Good coffee, good times :-)

Just on beyond Bosa Foods is the Ethical Bean roastery and café. The café is gorgeous, modern yet cozy space, the baristas are friendly, and the coffee is beyond reproach. I probably don’t need to list all the modifiers for you.
It’s a little expensive, and the actual location is out of the way, unless I’m going to Bosa or, god forbid, Aircare/​ICBC. However, I love seeing Ethical Bean handing out free coffee at so many community events, complete with their compostable cups, lids and stir sticks. I love you too, EB.

Certified Fair Trade coffee is ethical and gives you the same java jolt the other places do.
So why not drink responsibly and get the ethical coffee? I like the Sumatra Blend for breakfast. The shade-​grown, bird friendly and organic harvest is so good for the environment and helps so many people, we need to drink it so we feel good about ourselves. But they also have teas.
And boy do I love a cup of hot organic chai at about 4:30 in the afternoon? The fragrant cup of tea spiced with cardamom, cinnamon and some other really yummy herbs that I can’t pronounce is best steeped for 5 minutes and then it should be served with honey and milk. Not only that, but the packaging for the teas are printed on locally recycled paper and vegetable-​oil dyed paper.