The 2011 Professional Master of Coffee Science and Sensory Analysis will be held in Brescia (Italy) from June 27 to July 1. The Professional Master will be taught in English.

The goal of this Professional Master is of providing, through sensory analysis, criteria and practical application tools for orientating production, along the whole production process, towards the achievement of a product able to ensure customers’ maximum pleasure.

Practical training will explain and illustrate the tools for recognizing through senses qualities and defects in the cup, how to obtain maximum sensory potential in extraction at the coffee shop, sensory analysis tests for assessing quality and stability of production result and, finally, sensory analysis data and the specific tests for fast selection of green coffee, roasting and blending methods, supported by scientific confidence. The whole with the aim of achieving consumers’ best satisfaction at cup stage.

More information: please download the form.

from the correspondent Antonello Monardo *

The Brazilian Ministry of Agriculture, Wagner Rossi, signed a measure that delineates a series of criteria to ensure quality of coffee for the end consumer.   The new regulations will be applied to roasted coffee in both bean and ground forms.

The measure, which will go into effect in nine months, has already been published in the Official Register.  It will determine the requisites that will define the maximum percentage of impurities, setting the basic sensory standards for coffee, the second most consumed beverage in the country, second only to the water.

The coffee that is produced in Brazil, or imported into the country, can have a maximum impurity level of one percent.  The humidity in the roasted and ground coffee cannot exceed five percent.  Other specifications in the regulation have also been set, including the criteria for the coffee’s sensory characteristics at aromatic and taste levels, the definition of the acidity, bitterness and astringency, as well as the body of the coffee.

An expert accredited by the Ministry of Agriculture, who is either a technician or an agronomist specialized in coffee, will be entrusted with the sensory evaluation.  The test will be carried out in a firm accredited by the Ministry.

"I consider the measure a milestone in the national coffee production," the Minister said.  "It is a form of respect to the Brazilians who are accustomed to drinking and appreciating coffee."  According to the Ministry, the regulation will also increase its market value which has been growing, on average, by 5% a year, making Brazil the second largest consumer of coffee in the world.

The new legislation has been approved after three years of work by government representatives and members of the private sector, such as the Brazilian Coffee Industry Association.

* Antonello Monardo is living in Brasilia since 1992 and he his delegate of the Italian Brazilian chamber of commerce and industry. Working for café gourmet and special, he won the gold medal at the International Coffee Tasting 2008. He works on and manages classes for barmen and barwomen, he takes part to conferences and events in universities, spreading the culture of the quality coffee.

The third edition of International Coffee Tasting will be held in Brescia (Italy) on October, 26-27. The  commissions of the International Institute of Coffee Tasters, the scientific and independent association that concentrates exclusively on the sensory analysis of the coffee, will meet in Brescia to evaluate samples of coffees coming from all over the world.

International Coffee Tasting 2010 accepts coffee in all different styles, from espresso to capsules, from pods to filter coffee. Each company participating to the competition will receive its ranking and the sensory profile of its own product. The mission of the International Coffee Tasting 2010 is not only to award excellence, but also to support coffee roasters in reaching it. "The market is effectively polarizing itself, with peaks of high quality countered by example of poor quality", concluded Mr Odello.

International Coffee Tasting 2010 is open to coffee roasters from all around the world. Coffee roasters can register up until the June 30 (forms available at www.coffeetasters.org). For more information please contact Claudia Ferretti (claudia.ferretti@italiantasters.com, tel. +39 030 397308).

>> Go to the International Coffee Tasting 2010 page

Espresso Italiano Roasting, the new publication from the International Institute of Coffee Tasters, has just been published. It is completely focused on the Italian way of roasting and blending.

Italian espresso stands out as a concrete expression of the elegance typical of “Made in Italy”, products covering the key role of testimonial of our agro-food culture. And this is why science can only resort to all the modern available means to photograph this art, hoping to replicate and innovate it.

And the aim of Espresso Italiano Roasting is all about this, in fact it focuses on collecting and arranging the output of coffee research using appropriate technical terms to promote its diffusion, giving special attention to the current available means in the field of coffee roasting. As a matter of fact, each single chapter and paragraph is soaked in sensory analysis, which is the main tool used at present for selecting green coffee, setting the roasting process and realizing the blends. The countless correlations involving chemistry, technology and sensory results will easily guide the readers, giving them the tools to understand phenomena they have certainly already observed in the past without the necessary competence.

Espresso Italiano Roasting is in fact based on the experience that the author has achieved with the courses held by the International Institute of Coffee Tasters, the thousands of consumer and laboratory tests carried out by the Taster Study Centre and the tens of samples that have undergone sophisticated chemical analysis.

Espresso Italiano Roasting is only available in electronic format (high resolution PDF) and can be ordered on the website of the International Institute of Coffee Tasters. The index and the first chapter are freely downloadable from the same website.

*from the correspondent Antonello Monardo

The Brazilian coffee market is managing with an excess of offer. To avoid the situation to strike against producers, the minister of agriculture of Brazil, Reinhold Stephanes, argues that it is necessary to retire from the market something like 10 millions of sacks. A measure that will be adopt both this year and next one. It is estimated a sum of a billion of Brazilian reis for this operation (380 million of euro), of which 300 millions  will derived from commercialization and the rest from other sources. *

Antonello Monardo is living in Brasilia since 1992 and he his delegate of the Italian Brazilian chamber of commerce and industry. Working for café gourmet and special, he won the gold medal at the International Coffee Tasting 2008. He works on and manages classes for barmen and barwomen, he takes part to conferences and events in universities, spreading the culture of the quality coffee.

by Luigi Odello

Secretary General of the International Institute of Coffee Tasters, he is also a lecturer at the University of Udine, Verona and at the Cattolica in Piacenza. In addition he is the Chairman of the Taster Study Center and Secretary General of the Italian Espresso National Institute

There is a strange combination in the chemicals of foods, which can be very useful to understand how the coffee industry is less mature than that of wine.
Both drinks contain the trichloroanisole (and their companions), perceptible at the level of one part per trillion (threshold of perception in the air, in coffee and wine is a little higher), which is seen by our sensory system as a threat and then declined in the most categorical way.
In fact, even a suburbs medium-level restaurant refuses to replace a bottle of wine to a customer if it is corked, while for coffee, people close their nose and drink. Yet from a data base we have been filling for years we understand that a significant amount of coffee on the market has trichloroanisole concentrations well above the threshold of perception, even 500 times. Yet they continue to circulate without limits.  
However, if we go on talking about defects we can consider geosmin’s smell of rotten wood and earth, pyrazine that gives a vegetable taste (pea, chicory, depending on what accompanies it and on the levels of presence), dimetilsulfide and dimetildisulfide, both donors of fetid scents, or the more calm vinylguaiacol that, when highly concentrated, confers smoke and burnt taste.
These are just some examples, because in the course about the defects in the coffee, which the International Institute of Coffee Tasters is developing, the tasters will have the opportunity to try about twenty, spending an unforgettable day. It is necessary to make this step to create an embankment to the product of poor quality circulating unpunished on the market to accurately identify and tell the barista that he can drink it himself!  
Precisely for this reason many topics related to sensory vices and virtues of coffee, as they originate and by which compounds are given, will be discussed during the modules of the Professional Master of Coffee Science and Sensory Analysis which will be held on next 22-24 September.
 

IIAC Japan will organize three license courses in September:

• Tokyo (09)
• Osaka (10)
• Fukuoka (11)

More information: info@coffeetasters.jp, ph. +81 3 54116191.

Profits raised from Costa Coffee’s inaugural National Foundation Day, held over the weekend in its 700 UK stores, were donated to the Costa Foundation. The registered charity was set up by Costa Coffee in 2006 to help to build schools and improve the lives of coffee growing communities around the world. Costa customers helped to raise £150,000 on Saturday 14 June which will now help build three new schools in Costa Rica, Guatemala and Uganda. “We wanted to give something back to the communities where we source our coffee and local farmers have specifically told us that the best way Costa can help is by focusing on education through building schools for their children," David Hutchinson, Costa Coffee Marketing Director and Costa Foundation Trustee, said. Since 2006, the Costa Foundation has improved sanitation, developed land for families to grow crops, built teacher accommodation and built four schools in Colombia, Uganda and Ethiopia.

(Carlo Odello)

Recent YouGov research commissioned by Costa Coffee has revealed that 80 per cent of people in the UK now want the option of purchasing ethical coffee from their regular high street outlets. And surprisingly, Brits are also willing to pay an average of 14p (€ 0,18) more per cup to ensure their coffee is ethical. But despite consumers’ willingness to pay more, Costa will not be charging any extra for an ethical cup of coffee. (Carlo Odello)

The Swedish home furnishing retailer IKEA has decided that all coffee sold and served at IKEA worldwide shall be UTZ CERTIFIED. UTZ Certified is an independent not-for-profit organization that sets a standard for responsible coffee growing and sourcing, taking both people and the environment into consideration.
Annually, around 150 million cups of coffee are served and sold in the restaurants, bistros and Swedish Food Markets in 25 countries. Anders Lennartson – Quality, Social & Environmental Manager IKEA Food Services: “We serve a lot of coffee every day. We want our customers and co-workers to know that the coffee they drink is produced in a sustainable manner. Traceability is also important for a global company like us; an on-line coffee tracer will be available for the IKEA branded coffees”.

(Carlo Odello)