Scotland is at the epicentre of a coffee revolution: Glasgow firm Matthew Algie has teamed up with Oxfam to launch the world's first chain of fair trade cafés. Edd McCracken asks managing director David Williamson about the plan … and how to make the perfect cup of coffee. Something is brewing in the Gorbals. Glasgow-based coffee company Matthew Algie is recruiting for a revolution, looking to convert new followers to "fight the good fight". The uniform? Aprons. The weapons? A portafilter (the crucible in which ground beans are brewed under intense water pressure), a jug of foamed milk and a head full of essential espresso information. Which would explain why I find myself armed with said arsenal and intently timing the thick hazelnut drops as they drip from the machine, praying it takes between 22 and 28 seconds to brew 1-1.2 fluid ounces; the formula for a perfect espresso. This is the course on which Matthew Algie shapes the baristas of tomorrow; training for the marine corps could scarcely be more intense. "Espresso is a battle between water and coffee," explains David Williamson, Matthew Algie's 38-year-old managing director, whipping his sixth macchiato (espresso plus foamed milk) of the day into shape at break-neck speed. A quick bang here, a no-look grind there and it's done. This is a man whose avowed aim in life is to "create the perfect coffee". From where I'm standing, he seems well on his way.

My first go? After minutes which feel like an age, my coffee is ground, padded down and brewed into an espresso that is staggering in its watery weakness. Had this been Italy, spiritual home of espresso, I would be put in prison for such desecration. And, as for my foamed milk, it looks like a bubble bath run amok. Hardly the artistry of the expert barista which Williamson is training me to be.

Williamson is so passionate about coffee he readily admits he frequently asks to make his own in restaurants. He has caffeine in his blood. The company, which he took control of in 1995, was established in 1864 by his great, great, great grandfather, the eponymous Matthew Algie, a prominent Glasgow merchant.

Williamson talks at great length and with caffeine-fuelled animation about the project which marks the firm's 140th anniversary; in conjunction with Oxfam, Algie are launching Progreso, the world's first chain of fair trade cafés. If they get it right, it will be quite the opposite of my espresso; no froth, all kick. The big idea is that Progreso will buy their coffee from cooperatives of growers in Honduras, Ethiopia and Indonesia at a price which covers production costs; the cooperatives will also own 25 per cent of Progreso, which means they share in profits; a further 25 per cent will be ringfenced for investment in social projects within the three countries, predominantly within the areas of health and education. There are plans to open 20 Progreso cafés across the UK over the next three years; branches will open in Glasgow, Edinburgh and London by the end of this year.

The world is crying out for such a venture, argue its supporters, because the price paid for coffee has fallen by 70 per cent since 1997. This has had a huge impact on the planet's 25 million growers, many living in countries where coffee is the only cash crop. It can mean having to take their children out of school or not having access to health care.

This is an emotive issue and, in recent years, the anti-globalisation movement has coalesced around coffee, most notably around Starbucks; the coffee giant's stores were targeted during the infamous Battle of Seattle in 1999 when a protest swelled into a riot, and have acted as flashpoints in other protests. But for the silent majority who can't get worked up enough about globalisation to throw a brick through a café window, and prefer to register their unease while enjoying a delicious cappuccino with chocolate sprinkles, Progreso may be the answer.

"Oxfam taking on Starbucks is a great story and people love it," says Williamson. "People love to say, here's a chance for me as a consumer to vote back and quietly shun the globalisation thing, the whole corporate thing, by chosing to buy my latte here. "People like the idea of it but I believe, from a behaviour point of view, they'll only switch to us if they get other stuff like a cool design and great music as well. It needs to beat people like Starbucks on their own terms. If it does that and has the ethical thing as well, it should fly. It will fly." According to Wyndham James, a key figure in Oxfam now managing director of Progreso, the company is taking the fair trade ethos to a new level, and hopefully changing how the UK coffee industry works. "We are challenging the model for all the coffee shop operations," he says. "What we hope will be the big win for the growers is the degree to which others begin to emulate that. If you take the parallel with fair trade coffee, five years ago coffee shops weren't thinking of selling fair trade coffee. Now they're all selling it. And Progreso takes that one step further into coffee ownership and being clearer about the origins of your coffee."

Matthew Algie was a natural partner for Oxfam. It is already the UK's largest supplier of fair trade coffee to the high street, with Pret A Manger and Marks & Spencer pouring its blends. It also owns Glasgow's West End mecca for coffee lovers, Tinderbox.

But Williamson offers no apologies that Matthew Algie's involvement in Progreso is a business decision first and foremost and a humanitarian gesture second. This year seven per cent of his business is fair trade. Next year he estimates it will be 20 per cent. Last year UK coffee shops sold 67 per cent more fair trade coffe than they had the year before. Clearly, this is something that people want to buy.

"If we pursued being a charitable, fair trade or a utopian type business, I don't think we'd be that successful," says Williamson. "We are not a charity. We are here to develop our business, make some money and keep our shareholders happy." He pauses as he remembers who holds 95 per cent of Matthew Algie's shares. "Which happens to be me," he laughs.

In hindsight, does Williamson feel guilty about the way Matthew Algie did business until its conversion to fair trade? "Not guilty but ignorant," he says. "But I'm confident we are on the right path now, and I want to meet more and more people around the world involved with coffee and do what we can to help. The more you deal with fair trade, the more you realise it actually is the way you want to do business."

But ever since coffee has been a business, the words 'fair' and 'trade' have rarely been linked to it. Historian Antony Wild, author of Coffee: A Dark History, draws a stark line between slavery and today's coffee corporations, arguing that "coffee is an example of the way the first world exploiting the third world has morphed from colonialisation and slavery into globalisation."

Coffee has long been the drink of choice in the globalisation debate. It is the second most valuable international commodity after oil and is the world's biggest employer. The World Bank estimates 500 million people are involved directly or indirectly in the coffee trade. That is why the huge drop in coffee prices since 1997 - caused by the market switching to a free trade model and rampant overproduction (eight per cent more is produced than consumed) - is an issue on a global scale.

For Oxfam, coffee symbolises everything that is wrong with globalisation. They estimate that coffee farmers only recover 60 per cent of their production costs, while the four big roasters (Kraft, Nestlé, Proctor and Gamble, Sara Lee) make huge profits. Nestlé, for example, has a 26 per cent profit margin on instant coffee, meaning that poor smallholders are effectively paying for the large corporation's success. Oxfam has been involved with the fair trade movement since it began in this country. It has had its own fair trade coffee, Solidarity, for decades, and was involved with the launch of Cafédirect, the fair trade hot drinks company, in 1991. According to Angela O'Hagan, Oxfam Scotland's campaigns manager, Progreso is "the next logical step".

Not everyone is entirely positive. Wild agrees that fair trade is a positive movement, but believes its success will inevitably be limited. "It is a valid attempt to try and create a parallel universe in contrary distinction to the general patterns of globalisation," he says. "But it is has little political clout."

Of course, Progreso is not just about politics. David Williamson hopes it will help him to educate Scotland about the joys of coffee. We may drink it by the latte-load, but we are still ignorant about what makes a cracking cappuccino. "My challenge," he says, "is to get the entire nation to have that coffee epiphany."

Williamson believes that the UK consumer is 15 years away being a true coffee lover. Forget Seattle, forget Central Perk, forget even Italy. It is Wellington, New Zealand, he says, that is home to the most informed and appreciative coffee drinkers in the world. Williamson hopes to help us attain Wellingtonian levels of coffee mania, where we know that it takes nine bars of water pressure at 88-92C to brew the perfect espresso and we care enough to berate a bumbling barista who doesn't.

Zealot is the right word for Williamson. Coffee has long been a part of worship in some religions, and at Matthew Algie's Gorbals headquarters, their love of the bean is nothing short of devotional. The team of tasters describe their work with soulful flourishes. "This one is deep and full like a trombone note," says Eduarda Christovan, gesticulating over a smouldering cup. She previously worked with port, then wine, before focusing her sensitive palette on coffee. She swirls another sample around her mouth and tunes her tastebuds into its note. "It's high, like a violin."

This effort and expertise is going towards trying to make taste a science, to remove the objectivity, to create the perfect coffee. And if a side effect of that is that poor farmers in Honduras can afford to send their kids to school, so much the better.

All of which brings me back to my second attempt on the espresso machine. This time I'm in full caffeinated flow. I clear the portafilter with an almighty bang, refill it in a flurry, tap it down with a twist and 27 seconds later thick hazelnut espresso emerges. And my foamed milk? So flawless that Williamson parades it around the office, showing bemused co-workers my masterpiece. A grown man has never been more proud of a dairy product, and another convert is won to the Progreso cause. But will the rest of the world swallow it?

Sunday Herald, 4 July 04