Drinking coffee is an agricultural act, and it should follow that we think of producing coffee as a gastronomic act.  The coffee production and consumption systems most common today are harmful to the earth, to its ecosystems and to the peoples that inhabit it.  Taste, biodiversity, the health of humans and animals, well-being and nature are coming under continuous attack. This jeopardizes the very urge to drink and produce coffee as gastronomes and exercise the right to pleasure without harming the existence of others or the environmental equilibria of the planet we live on. 

The consumer orients the market and production with his or her choices and, growing aware of these processes, he or she assumes a new role. Consumption becomes part of the productive act and the consumer thus becomes a co-producer.

The producer plays a key role in this process, working to achieve quality, making his or her experience available and welcoming the knowledge and knowhow of others. 

The effort must be a common one and must be made in the same aware, shared and interdisciplinary spirit as the science of gastronomy. 

Each of us is called upon to practice and disseminate a new, more precise and, at the same time, broader concept of coffee quality based on three basic, interconnected prerequisites. Quality coffee must be: 

1) Good. A coffee's flavor and aroma, recognizable to educated, well-trained senses, is the fruit of the competence of the producer and of choice of raw green beans by the roaster and roasting methods, which should compliment, not characterize the coffee.

2) Clean. The environment has to be respected and sustainable practices of farming, animal husbandry, processing, marketing and consumption should be taken into serious consideration. Every stage in the agro-industrial production chain, consumption included, should protect ecosystems and biodiversity, safeguarding the health of the consumer and the producer. 

3) Aware. Social justice should be pursued through the creation of labor respectful of man and his rights and capable of generating adequate rewards; through the pursuit of balanced global economies; through the practice of sympathy and solidarity; through respect for cultural diversities and traditions.