Is it ok for vegans to drink coffee?

[Jebus]

What are your thoughts on this? I don't know how much land it uses up compared to tobacco and similar crops, but it seems highly unnecessary.

[EquALLity]

I stopped regularly drinking coffee awhile ago, because I was mildly addicted to the caffeine and because coffee made me irritable sometimes.

I missed the distinct taste of coffee, so I replaced it with a herbal tea called Teeccino, of which all the products are vegan, and it tastes a lot like coffee and has no caffeine (unlike decaf, which does have a little caffeine).

I don't know much about the land issue. Do you have a link?
I'm not sure how reliable this source is: http://www.vegsource.com/jo/qa/qacoffee.htm

Traditionally, coffee is a shade-grown plant. It also maintains a high cash value, second only to oil in the international market. Consequently, coffee has helped to preserve rainforest and ecological diversity, unlike beef production and the lumber industry which have slashed and burned precious forest. Unfortunately, nearly half the world's coffee producers have succumbed to technological "advancements" and are now producing sun-grown coffee in order to reap rapid yields and short-term economic gain. These mass production "advantages," however, exact an enormous toll. Sun-grown coffee requires heavier chemical inputs, is more costly to maintain, and drastically depletes the life-span of the plant. It also has transformed coffee plantations into ecological deserts where fauna and flora are unable to survive and land degradation, water pollution, and chemical poisoning are rampant. In addition, sun-grown coffee has decimated indigenous cultures who encounter ongoing health hazards and face economic devastation.

[brimstoneSalad]

I haven't heard that before (shade grown vs. sun grown), that's interesting.

Wikipedia has an article on it:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shade-grown_coffee

Upon casual inspection, that looks pretty credible. Preserves forests, avoids most agricultural inputs, sustains carbon capture.

[ThunderKiss65]

Caffiene is the most widely used drug in the world, saying coffee isn't vegan would turn almost everyone in the world away from vegetarianism. You are worried about land usage but my biggest issue with coffee is the heavy pesticide use. Pesticides have to be sprayed directly on crops & quite often. The coffee farmers are the most at risk individuals when it comes to the coffee issue. Not only are they subject to higher exposure of pesticides they also most likely under paid and over worked.