Howard Schultz, Starbucks CEO, was in Italy with a group of partners to study the coffee market in the country. In the last months he has been working on the repositioning of Starbucks, trying to face the threats coming from aggressive competitors as McDonald’s. Coffee Taster republishes the letter from Howard Schultz.

* * * *

Dear Partners,

As I write you this note, I’m flying back to Seattle with a small group of Starbucks partners after spending a few days in Italy. No, we were not there to open our first store in Rome, although I’m quite certain that day will surely come. We were there to conduct a market visit to take in “all things coffee,” and to have strategic discussions with leading food and beverage companies.

We tasted and consumed coffee in every coffee bar we encountered. We saw elegant designs, experienced the artistry of baristas, ate fantastic food, and were introduced to new and interesting product ideas for the future. It was exciting for me to, once again, return to where it all began. The Italian people are wonderful. Their passion for life, their love of food and wine, and their coffee, is contagious.

During our visit, I made the following observations:

The Barista — The Barista is highly trained and very skilled. He presents each cup of espresso with great care and pride after intently watching the pour of the shot. He steams the milk as an artisan to produce a velvety foam, and from time to time, truly elevates his work to “art.”

The Coffee — This will probably surprise you (and hopefully you will not view my assessment as arrogant, but rather as honest), but the coffee was not that good. It turns out that most Italian coffee roasters blend their coffee with robusta beans. This is most likely because of a need for increased profit, but as a result of this decision, much is lost in the cup. The coffee leaves you with a strong, acidic, somewhat sour taste on the side of your tongue. This taste was unpleasant and disagreeable, but prominent in almost all the coffee we tasted.

Despite the change in the taste of the coffee, the experience we had was overwhelmingly positive on both a personal and professional level. We all felt a strong sense of pride in our company and in all of you. For many years now, we have been a respectful inheritor of the Italian coffee culture. We have built our business honoring the very things we saw and experienced. And, in some cases, I am humbled to say, we have improved it.

All of you deliver a world class experience to our customers — one that I believe Italians would praise. We have challenges and opportunities ahead of us, but as long as we embrace our heritage and tradition, have faith in our coffee, our values, and our core purpose, we will continue to win the hearts and minds of our customers. As for the coffee, we never have and never will blend our coffee with robusta beans. We will leave that for others. It is important to note that today; we ethically source higher quality arabica coffee than in any other time in our history. And, in my view, we roast it at a quality level that is better than in the past because of new technology.

So, this trip brought me back to where it all began, but at the same time reinforced how good we are and how far we have come. We learned a lot. And, we will utilize much of this learning to keep pushing for innovation, while at the same time embracing our core, our people, and our coffee. All of which I am proud to say would stand tall even in the greatest coffee theatre of them all.

Thank you for all that you do.

Onward,

Howard

by Roberto Sala

Barista. His bar, the Mary’s Bar in Costa Masnaga, in the North of Italy, was set up by his great-grandparents in 1928. He was brought up surrounded by machines, bags and cups. Fifteen years ago he started his job behind the counter: from 2001, he is a coffee taster and Espresso Italiano Specialist.In February 2007, he has been appointed to the board of the International Institute of Coffee Tasters. He is the first barista who has been appointed to such a role.

Every day I pull up and down the shutter of my bar: we do this in my family ever since 1928. It’s now been 15 years since I started working behind the counter and preparing espressos and cappuccinos for those who, stopping by in this small town of mine in the North of Italy, decide to take a break or for the people who live here and regularly come to see me because they see my bar a part, so to say, an extra room, of their own house.

I love this job. And I like to do it thoroughly. Every single detail is important. This is the reason why I want to begin this column by speaking about the importance of details, which, at the end of the day, are not really details in that they make the difference between a skilled barista and a less skilled one.

Let us consider, for example, the resins of the softner. If they are not regenerated, as time goes by, the limestone will damage the mechanical components of the machine. In my bar I have a manual softner. I had an electronic one but I replaced it because I was not satisfied with its results. With the manual one I am using, I must devote at least one hour per week to its maintenance, a reason for which being that if the machine does not work properly, the coffee is less creamy. What sort of espresso is an espresso with a cream that does not deserve that name?

As I already said, details are important. The bell of the coffee grinder is often abandoned to the fat component of the coffee which coats it little by little with an opaque layer. Cleaning it is not simple because it is necessary to be careful and completely remove the oxidised fat otherwise the cup of coffee will be rancid. Normally, I use warm water and smell-less detergent – this is extremely important because I do not want to have in the air aromas other than those of the coffee.

Here is another detail: the steam wand. This is an important message to the client. First of all, at the level of the image you give, it is really annoying to see all those, too many actually, encrusted steam wands. It is also, and especially, important from the sensory point of view: if a wand encrusted with milk from a previous cappuccino is used for a new one how can the milk be whipped without leaving in it unpleasant aromas?

Mere details? Well, preparing an espresso is about details. Here are some other details. When I open a bag of coffee the first thing I do is observe the shape of the beans and sense their aromas. It is best to let it “breathe” for a while and not use it immediately. After one hour, approximately, I can put it in the machine. It goes without saying that I taste it personally to check the quality. The visual characteristics can be monitored for each espresso, while the gustatory sensations, the olfactory ones which are perceived directly and those which are perceived at the back of the mouth must be monitored all throughout the day. Indeed, many conditions can vary and have a negative impact on the sensory effect of the espresso. The basic parameters must, of course, always be kept under control: the pressure of the machine at 9 atmospheres, the water must be injected in the group at 88°C and the 7-gram dose of coffee must give in 25 seconds precisely 25 millimetres of espresso.

Some people might think that it is nothing more than an espresso. Some others might as well believe that the attention devoted to the very details in the preparation of the cappuccino is a gross exaggeration. Nonetheless, it is all about this: it is all the details that make the cup unique for our client. Otherwise, it is just a bit of ground coffee that undergoes a certain pressure. And so much for the pleasure of 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

The coffee production cycle is long and, especially, all too often there is no contact between the various stages: whoever harvests the beans in the tropical countries rarely has an idea of how they will be processed and of the expectations of the final consumer.
We want to focus on this last element in that coffee, a successful one, in the future must be able to satisfy the desires of the consumers. It must be said that satisfying expectations is something that goes from the ritual modality to the place where you drink coffee. Having said this, the most important aspect is sensory trends.
Resorting to the ten points identified by the Taster Study Centre, we can try and define the profile of the winning coffee.

Increase in the number of taste-aware people
In future we will have more and more time availability and a part of this will lead to an increase in the number of taste-aware people. The sort of people who attend courses to regain their ability to make autonomous choices through an effective use of sense organs. We can see this trend already: just come to think about the 5.000 people who attended the courses of the International Institute of Coffee Tasters. The increase of such people will, as a consequence, bring about a more demanding research for the satisfaction of the pleasure that can come from coffee. Ultimately, this will mean that people will point out to each other the good and bad products available on the market. The quality-minded companies will have a certain alley, all the others will be penalised.

Evolution of the analytical approach to taste
The increasing conviction of the inability to have a role in handling the major social issues will lead individuals to create for themselves some micro cosmos where they can find self-confidence, self-satisfaction and, in general, rewards. The small pleasures in life will become increasingly important and coffee is, undoubtedly, one of these. Greater attention will be devoted to the quality of what we drink and people will want to match taste and knowledge so that they can boast their specific competence.

Decline of gender differences
Males and females will be more and more similar in terms of tastes and, ultimately, of consumption. Coffee will become a way of getting together and the places where to drink it will become a sort of a stage of social life. This will be the background against which new rituals and sensory experiences will be sought for.

Looking for the lost sensory experience
We do not know to what extent this is true but many people say that coffee no longer has the aroma it used to, that intense and varied smell that you could find everywhere inside the bar. The diffusion of consumption systems that pay less attention to the olfactory quality – take automatic machines – and of a certain type of blends for home use – where, when you are lucky, only the aroma of roasted beans dominates – have deprived the consumer of an effective offer to a demand which, probably, has its origins in our genes. Well, the future will be characterised by a wealth of individuals looking for these sensory experiences.

Back to genuine aromas
Power, perfection, deepness: these are the three distinguishing qualities of an excellent cup of coffee. The Italian espresso owes a bit of its international success to these expectations of the consumer, even if they are unconscious. It is a strong sum of aromas and, when these are good, they are at the heart of a sublime moment of sensory satisfaction.
The preparation method is important because it can extract the very best from a blend but there is always the other face of the coin: if the blend is of poor quality, the negative sides of it will be even more noticeable compared with extracting via softer methods (e.g. filter and moka pot).
The return to genuine aromas will also reduce the trend to some experiences, such as aromatisation of coffee, whilst producing an increase of traditional matches, i.e. with milk or, in some cultures, with distillates.

The floral goes universal
Floral is the smell of life itself and is climbing the stairs of appreciation. In the coffee it finds its best expression in the varieties ripened at high altitudes – where the difference in temperature between day and night is sharper – subject to wet processing and then left for fermentation in pure and fresh waters. The not-too-strongly-roasted blends which have high quantities of the floral aroma will benefit from this and the same goes for consumption of pure varieties, single-origins which are becoming increasingly popular in Italy.

Decline of the fruity
The fruity aroma is one of the big favourites in that it is a promise of easily absorbable energy sources. Over time, in the industrial economies, it has been widely used to make products such as drugs more pleasant, hence being associated to negative things. In the coffee it almost always goes hand in hand with the floral and it is less strong than other sensations, consequently it will have no influence on consumption.

Cultural contaminations
Globalisation will produce a parallel and transversal flattening off of different consumption methods. If, till yesterday, Italy drank espresso and the US the filter coffee, already now, but especially tomorrow, the Americans will want espresso and Italians will be looking for other preparation methods. The segmentation between the various types will happen depending on the time of day: a long coffee for the morning, might be a single-origin, an espresso at the mid-morning break, a moka after lunch, for example.
The popularity of machines that are fed with coffee in beans, making it possible to have different preparations, will support this trend. And coffee will become more and more a ritual and always less of a habit.

Looking for softness
The world needs caresses. Therefore, from a tactile point of view, the coffee will be required to be more and more silky and absolutely astringent. The Italian espresso prepared with good-quality blends will be better positioned because it will have body, it will be syrup-like and creamy. Beverages such as cappuccino, which due to their nature have a remarkable tactile tenderness, will be rewarded. And with cream being criticised because of health issues, it will be up to traditional genuine beverages to satisfy the need for softness.

Looking for sensory consistency
Even if the consumer is not an expert taster, her/his subconscious verifies the level of consistency between the perceptions given by the various sense organs or between the perceptions of a different nature given by the same sense. In the coffee, the floral/fruity must keep a certain relationship with the roasted/spicy, the acidity with the bitterness, the bitterness and the roasted note with the colour of the creamy froth. From a coffee prepared with filter or moka, nobody expects neither the creamy froth nor the syrup-like touch, while for an espresso this is of paramount importance. And you name it.

Final observations
To wrap up, the coffee for the future will be the type of coffee capable of satisfying both taste and knowledge, the ritual moments and the needs of the life torn between increasingly hectic working styles and the desire to enjoy leisure time and, especially, through the little pleasures and the time we devote to ourselves. For coffee, if satisfactory from a sensory point of view, we can imagine what follows:

• a new interest in single-origin varieties;
• increase in consumption of coffee in beans both at home and at the workplace thanks to the new machines which make it possible to immediately grind coffee and prepare different types of it;
• greater use of single-dose coffee both at home and at the workplace;
• survival of traditional methods, e.g. the moka pot in Italy, which leave margins for a remarkable rituality and enable an adequate use of single-origin varieties;
• growth of Italian espresso in the world.

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

In the next few years it will not be easy to keep up with innovation in the coffee sector, but, no doubts, it will be a fascinating time. In this issue of Coffee Taster, we shall deal with sensorial trends and what the big companies say with regard to the methods they use to monitor quality. Not far from now, at EISday2008, the annual conference of the Italian Espresso National Institute on the 24th of February, we will focus on the findings of the biggest ever research which has been conducted into the quality of coffee.
This is precisely what made us think about evolution/innovation in our sector: how many operators are ready to benefit from it? And how many will suffer from heavily negative consequences? The fact is that, outside the micro cosmos of each operator, there is a world which is changing at an unbelievable pace, but many people seem not to realise this.
Many producing country are moving towards a European-type of qualification of their productions. This will lead them to offering a better product and to wanting more money. At home people will increasingly use single-dose coffee or coffee in beans as a result of the existence of new technology machines which are more reliable and effective. People at home will drink a better quality coffee and the same will happen at the workplace. At home, and perhaps even at the restaurant, coffee will be part of a new ritual: single origins coffees will become more and more popular, a pleasure to share with friends, maybe extracted with a moka pot so that you can actually see the coffee coming.
It is, therefore, reasonable to wonder whether roasters and, especially, baristas are ready for this. The former will find themselves dealing with producers of green coffee and with a different style of coffee consumption, both inside communities and at home. Most probably, those who have not done it yet will have to establish direct contacts with the producers of green coffee, meet a new type of demand for home consumption and for serving and take care of their coffee bars – currently suffering from a reduction in consumption which could become even worse in future – in Italy with a different approach. For many Italian roasters, coffee bars are a strategic sector which is being governed by new mechanisms. The methods for attracting clients and handling them will change. The magic word will be training.
The International Institute of Coffee Tasters, which has always adopted this approach, is currently a reference point at an international level – with a tested method and with effective training instruments. Through its research activity, it is also an attentive observer of the evolution of consumption and quality of coffee as well as the relevant machinery. In 2008, in addition, we will have a new edition of “International Coffee Tasting”: could there be a better occasion for monitoring world evolution?

Vietnamese coffee producer and exporter Thai Hoa Corporation yesterday inked a US$14.89 million contract to buy a GEA Niro A/S instant coffee production line for its in-house plant in Lam Dong Province. The installation should take no longer than one year to complete. It is the largest deal of its kind between Viet Nam and Denmark and is expected to improve the quality and market share for instant coffee products ‘made in Viet Nam’ in the global market. So far, there are only three instant coffee producers in the country.

(Carlo Odello, source: Viet Nam News)

«Italians share coffee to beat price rise» Telegraph.co.uk reported on the 8th of January. The source was the article from the Italian newspaper La Stampa reporting that «As the price rises, a new trend is born: “coffee-sharing”». And it added that at coffee bars in Partinico, in the province of Palermo, «now clients are used to sharing an espresso among two or three people to contrast the price risen from € 0.70 to € 0.90». This because of «low incomings, unemployment and economic crisis».
Cannot Sicilians really afford a cup of espresso anymore? Not exactly, Coffee Taster reports. «It is true that in Partinico people use to share their coffee, but not to contrast the rise of price – Alessio Mazzurco from “Bar Liberty” told us – They do that to avoid gastrointestinal annoyances». It is well known that in Sicily, as well as in Southern Italy more in general, a larger amount of Robusta is used in espresso blends. This gives more cream to the coffee and a stronger body, but also more caffeine and is less digestible. At “Bar del Viale”, always in Partinico, we were told that «you can take a coffee like ours maximum twice or three times a day». As people usually go to the bar when they meet and have an espresso, they share it to avoid exaggerating in its consumption. This can also happen in Palermo. Sharing a coffee is not just about saving money, it is about health.

(Carlo Odello)

Vietnam exported 1.2 million tonnes of coffee in 2007, bringing in a total revenue of over 1.8 billion USD, a 22% increase in terms of volume and a 50% rise in value. For the first time coffee export value overtook that from rice. Coffee is now leading agroforestry products in export value accounting for 13% of the Vietnamese agricultural export value.
The country is now the world second largest coffee producer behind Brazil. According to the Vietnam Association of Coffee and Cocoa the key buyers of Vietnames coffee are Germany, the US, Spain, Italy, Belgium, Poland, France, the Republic of Korea, the UK and Japan, accounting for 75% of the total sale. Germany alone represents the largest market share (14%).

(Carlo Odello, source: Vietnam News Agency)

In November 2008, there will be the second edition of International Coffee Tasting, the only one international competition where coffee is tasted according to the scientific rules of sensory analysis. While for wine there are many competitions and they are now part of its history and tradition, in the coffee sector competitions are often focused on the barista and almost never on the product. Coffee Taster is aimed at promoting a competition between the coffees from all over the world as to highlight the degree of pleasure offered by the product that comes from well renowned areas, that is cultivated with all the necessary attention, thoroughly processed, skilfully selected, properly roasted and, when needed, finely blended. It puts emphasis on the most prestigious products and points out to the consumers the best products available on the market, thus stimulating producers to pursue quality in its most modern sense: customer satisfaction. International Coffee Tasting 2008 will be organised, just as the previous edition, by the International Institute of Coffee Tasters with the technical and scientific support of the Taster Study Center. Single origin coffees or blended, in beans, ground or in single dose for espresso, moka or filter will be admitted to the competition. During the 2006 edition, 81 coffees have been evaluated by three commissions of expert tasters. Medals have been awarded based on threshold scores in full compliance with the competitions rules which established that the coffees which could be awarded a prize had to account for maximum 30% of all participants. It was a very tight competition and some products did not win a medal just for a few tenths of a point. There was a very strict selection that awarded prizes only to high-level products. The announcement of the competition and the application form are available at www.coffeetasters.org. For further information please write to info@coffeetasters.org.

New plant for Cma (Astoria and Wega) The new Cma, company that produces over 30,000 professional espresso machines – sold with the Astoria and Wega brands – each year, plant has been inaugurated. On its 40,000 square metres surface there are 4 production lines featuring lean manufacturing technologies. This is an industrial philosophy which belongs to the Toyota system and it is aimed at minimising – and actually getting rid of – all forms of wasting. This makes it possible to rationalise work flows and procedures for assembling the machines as well as to considerably increase productivity with a positive impact on overall efficiency.

Pellini partner in the Overland expedition Pellini Caffè took part in the Paris-Beijing expedition, the latest one organised by the Overland team, which will be soon broadcasted by RAI, the Italian national public television. One-hundred years after the competition won by the Prince Scipione Borghese on board of the legendary Itala, Pellini Caffè has accompanied the 4 Iveco lorries used for the expedition right to the heart of the Chinese Republic (the convoy covered in two months time a distance of 14.000 Km and crossed 11 countries). Recently, the Taiwanese importer and supplier of Pellini Caffè, You Chang Trading Co. Ltd, has opened an office in Shanghai.

This is how the nose talks to the brain How is the life-long connection between nose and brain created during the embryonic stage? The answer comes from a Telethon scientific research which also sheds light on the mechanisms of a rare genetic disease, i.e. the Kallmann syndrome, characterised, among other symptoms, loss of the sense of smell (anosmia) and severe reproduction deficits. The nerve endings start in the nose and, in order to go in the brain, must cross a border area which is a sort of barrier. Giorgio Merlo, a researcher from the Telethon Dulbecco Institute and his colleagues from the department of animal and human biology at the University of Turin have found out that some specialised cells act as if they were guards. This means that these cells are able to recognise the approaching signals sent by the nerves and they trigger a lowering of the barrier so that such signals can reach the brain. This takes place during the embryonic stage and creates the connection between the olfactory cells (which detect smells) and the brain (which processes them).

The photo exhibition of Illycaffè “From the beginning” in London The 6th of October was the closing day of the photo exhibition “From the beginning”. The photos by Sebastião Salgado have been taken in Illycaffè plantations in order to describe the culture of coffee in the countries where it is produced and to illustrate the various stages of the processing process. The exhibition has been organised in partnership with Amazonas Images, Contrasto and NBpictures and with the support of the International Coffee Organization and of the Embassy of Brazil in London.

Caffè Mokarico obtains the ethical-social quality certification Caffè Mokarico, from Florence, is the first roaster in the world that can boast three different certifications on environment protection, sustainable development and social accountability. It already had the ISO 9001 and the ISO 14001 certification and now it has received the SA 8000 (Ethical) certification for the company’s commitment to the fight against exploitation of child labour, to guarantying health and safety on the workplace, to the respect of human rights and workers’ rights with the support of all people involved in the production process and sales.

Enquiry of coffee tasters at the coffee shop The enquiry on the quality of coffee at the coffee shop, promoted by the International Institute of Coffee Tasters, has been kicked off. The tasters who are working all around Italy have already handed back several tasting cards. The tasters, apart from evaluating the coffee according to the strict method of the Institute, must fill in a tasting card which focuses on some of the most important aspects of coffee consumption other than the degree of pleasure perceived by the individual. This sort of investigation is complemented by a full-blown sensorial evaluation which is also focused on the analysis of the bar environment. To this purpose, twenty bars in the centre of Rome and Milan have been selected and analysed by judges – coffee experts – qualified in sensorial analysis. This research is supported by Altroconsumo, the first independent consumers association in Italy.

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

The espresso taken at the coffe shop is one of the few products of the ‘Bel Paese’, Italy, associated with the idea of pleasure that you pay for all the same, be it good or bad. Actually, its price depends more on the geography – in the South of Italy it is cheaper – than on the degree of pleasure it can give.
Hear this out: two coffee shops in the Loreto area in Milan; both nice and rather big in size. The first one is Bar Gatto, with tables outdoors. I step inside an there is a sparkling counter behind which is a shiny Faema positioned in a way that makes it possible for the barista never to turn his back on the clients. I ask for a coffee and promptly the barista prepares it with the machine. I am not able to fully see the operations he is performing but it seems to me that he is doing things professionally. Here comes the first surprise: after having finished his job he comes round to me and says: “Listen, I prepared two cups because I will drink one myself, just choose the one you like most”. Believe me, for a second I thought I was not really in Milan. I give a look at the two espressos, in one of them there is a white spot – the same old story: the two exits of the filter-holder never give you two identical coffees – and so I go for the other one. Nice hazel-shade creamy froth with a fine texture, the smell is flowery. To the palate it is silky, with a fine balance between bitter and acid and then it develops a complex aroma in which you can distinguish the toasted bread, the cocoa, dried fruit and nuts. I ask for the name of the blend because I cannot possibly spot it: Prestige by Covim. I say that the coffee is nice, sit there and chat for a while and then I pay: € 0,80.
I carry on my tour in the various coffee shops looking for the sort of quality in the espresso that has been defined by the International Institute of Coffee Tasters and shortly after I walk in another elegant coffee shops with an attractive name: Bar del Corso. Once again, the staff is polite. I start speaking about the price of a cup of coffee in Milan, a very popular topic at the time. They guarantee they will not increase it till the moment the supplier will increase the price of the blend. I ask for a coffee and immediately the bar tender removes the filter holder from a nice Cimbali, he fills it with a strong stroke, he presses it with energy, he wipes any coffee grounds off the rim of the filter, he fastens it and observes the coffee while it pours in the cup and stops the machine at the right moment. No doubts that he knows what he is doing and he is professional.
He hands the coffee over to me and I observe it. The colour of the creamy froth is right but the texture is rather coarse. The notes of straw, dry grass and wet earth are clear to the nose. To the palate, it is thick and has a good body but as you swallow it the tongue becomes rough and the interior of the cheeks wrinkles. With regard to sensations perceived at the back of the throat, the notes are just the same notes perceived by the nose but even stronger and more annoying. I pay for it: € 0,90. I keep in my mind the name of the blend: Hardy. I then head to the following bar but I am accompanied by an astringent sensation that does not want to leave my mouth. I hope I will be able to find something better but I no longer want to have any more coffee and I am afraid I will not be able to be a fair judge for the sample I will taste.