In honor of National Fair Trade Month, this week’s Gourmet Giveaway prize is not only socially conscious, but also smooth and satisfying.

Six winners will enjoy Brazilian coffees from National Geographic’s Terra Firma coffee brand. All Terra Firma coffees are Fair Trade Certified™, which guarantees fair prices to farm families, environmental stewardship and investment in farming communities.

We know many people will love Terra Firma coffee (it was on our Father’s Day gift list in June). The single-origin, specialty-grade coffee is sourced from six of the world’s finest growing regions: Brazil, Ethiopia, Costa Rica, Colombia, Sumatra and Kenya. If you don’t win, you can purchase it on Amazon.com in light, medium and dark roast, ground or whole bean. The handsome bag makes it a nice gift, too.

It’s effortless to make the world a better place, simply by buying Fair Trade coffee.

It’s effortless to save the world by drinking
organic, Fair Trade coffee. Photo by
Ermek | IST.

With coffee emporia nearly everywhere you look—cafés and shops that sell beans—you’d think that coffee was a hot growth category. Yet the annual growth rate of conventional coffee between 2000 and 2008 was just 1.5%. Organic coffee imports experienced a 29% annual average growth rate during the same period, and Fair Trade® coffee, 35%. Last year, the amount of organic coffee imported into the United States increased 12%, and Fair Trade coffee increased 30%, despite the worst economy in 70 years and the premium prices that both command.

You’d think this would be great news, but just 0.6% of the coffee sold in the major consuming countries is organic certified, and even less is Fair Trade certified.

In honor of National Fair Trade Month, we’ve reviewed some of our favorite organic and Fair Trade coffees. Agricultural products can be organic and Fair Trade, organic or Fair Trade (obviously, the vast majority of foods are neither). What do these terms mean? In brief:

Yet of the $18 billion spent on coffee in the U.S. last year, the tiniest fraction went to organic and Fair Trade coffee. You can make a difference while enjoying an excellent cup of java.

If you regularly buy organic chocolate, you’ve probably tried Green & Black’s. If you’re not “experienced” with G&B’s, you’re in luck: The line is widely available at retail as well as online. The U.K.-based company was a pioneer in the organic chocolate space, the world’s first organic, Fair Trade chocolate company. It has helped the cacao farmers of Belize stay on their farms and do what they love—grow cacao—instead of taking city jobs to support their families. Green & Black’s has proved that a company can be committed to environmental sustainability and Fair Trade prices, and still make a tidy profit. In fact, Green & Black’s organic chocolate is the U.K.’s fastest-growing confectionary brand, which prompted corporate giant Cadbury Schweppes to purchase Green & Black’s, in which it had a small stake, in May 2005.

Most of Green & Black’s bars are flavored, with four notable exceptions: two darks, a milk and a white. What we like most about G&B’s bars is that the flavors are never coy on the palate; they’re strong and forthright, demanding your attention with every bite. Read the full review for more about Green & Black’s chocolate bars—available in 13 varieties.

If you are a fan of dark chocolate, then you’ll fall in love with G&B’s 70% Dark Chocolate bar.

So how’s the chocolate? Bittersweet, earthy with dried nuances (see our Flavors & Aromas of Chocolate chart). It’s not a sumptuous chocolate (not flowing with extra cocoa butter), but will please lovers of masculine-style bittersweet chocolate. And, it will please everyone who believes in the dual noble causes of Fair Trade and organic farming.

A 3.5-ounce bar (100g) is $6.50, .71 ounce (20g) bar is $2.75 at TravelChocolate.com. Gift packages are available.

See more of our favorite organic/Fair Trade certified chocolate: