PITTSBURGH -- Before you take a sip of your favorite coffee, take a closer look in your cup.

More than 40 million gallons of pesticides are used to grow coffee every year, millions of gallons of herbicides and billions of pounds of fungicide. The chemicals take a toll on the growers and the earth, not to mention they may end up in your mug. That's why one Pittsburgh man decided to do things differently.

Caffeine may give you quite a jolt and make you feel pretty good. But the coffee at La Prima in the Strip District is coffee that you can actually feel good about drinking.

La Prima is Pittsburgh's only micro-roaster. The coffee is good, but it's what you won't find in these beans that has owner Sam Patti's business booming.

"The coffee grower is environmentally responsible. That is what you are buying," Patti said.

There are no petroleum-based pesticides or potentially cancer-causing synthetic herbicides used in the blends Patti roasts -- only fair trade organic coffee.

Patti is one of a handful of roasters to achieve the USDA certification in Pennsylvania.

"I buy organic food. I turn out the lights. I think the message is out that we need to pay more attention to these kinds of things," Patti said. "We have separate scoops only for organic. We have separate grinders. All organic coffees go in the bags that have specified 'USDA certified fair trade.'"

"It's not so much a taste difference necessarily. As it is inside you know what the difference is," said La Prima's organic expert Bruce Comings.

And customers are buying it. Right now Patti's organic coffee makes up 30 percent of the business, but that's growing 10 percent every year.

For more information about La Prima's products visit www.laprima.com.

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