The coffee aisle at your local supermarket might be growing increasingly complicated. Not just in the number and variety of brands, but in the packaging claims as well: what the beans taste or smell like, how they were roasted, and maybe even how they do or don’t impact the environment. And if a bag says "shade-grown coffee" — alluding to the kind of ecosystem the beans grew in — that's a selling point the brand might want to lure you in with.
Shade-grown coffee, in a way, tries to put coffee plants back into the environment they came from. Having diverse plant life living side by side, root by root comes with benefits for coffee and the ecosystems themselves. But the positive qualities of shade-grown practices might not extend as far as companies might make it seem.
