by Carlo Odello

Trainer and member of the board of the International Institute of Coffee Tasters

We all knew the International Institute of Coffee Tasters was landed in China. We held the first Espresso Italiano Tasting courses in Guangzhou and Beijing in December 2010. Thanks to our member of the board Darcy Sun, from March of this year, our manual Espresso Italiano Tasting is also available in Chinese. Furthermore we organized in July a new series of training courses and seminaries.

Now we are back again in Guangzhou where the International Institute of Coffee Tasters together with the Italian Espresso National Institute has patronaged a new edition of Caffè Italia. So, after the editions in 2010 held in Tokyo, New York and Paris and the 2011 Tokyo one, a new building block is added to the plan of spreading the real Italian espresso culture.

From 24th to 27th of November a Caffè Italia strengthen by the presence of 16 different blends will enter the scene during the Guangzhou Coffee Expo 2011. A tasting point proposing the Iespresso in its regional variations to the Chinese public, ranging from the region of Piedmont to Sicily. There is just one idea in mind: to continue spreading our espresso principles in China.

What is the most challenging thing of this new Chinese episode? The fact that Caffè Italia knew how to capture the attention of more roasters, a lot of which will be present in the area (if you are curious to know who they are, I redirect you to the coffee list that follows). The journey of our espresso in China is rather long but meanwhile we are making our way, and we sincerely thank those who are supporting us.  

Caffè Italia at Guangzhou Coffee Expo 2011, click to enlarge

by Carlo Odello *

The Host show will take place next month in Milan. If you are attending it, why do not you consider to attend the Italian Espresso Tasting course just the day before the show (20 October)? Let us make you discover the real Italian Espresso culture. If you are interested in understanding how to recognize and evaluate the real Italian Espresso, just download the leaflet. You can also drop me an email at carlo.odello@italiantasters.com if you need further information about the course.

Do you want to prepare your trip and get more information about the espresso you will find in Milan? Just read the article about the coffee tradition in the area of Milan. And remember that if you are a member of the International Institute of Coffee Tasters you will receive a free selection of articles of our quarterly magazine in English.

 * Trainer and member of the board of the International Institute of Coffee Tasters

by Carlo Odello *

We just scheduled an Espresso Italiano Tasting course just the day before the Host show in Milan (20 October 2011). Many professionals wrote us asking about this course: here it is! The course will take place in Brescia, hometown to the International Institute of Coffee Tasters. This means just 1,5 hours fom the Host show in Milan.

Why should you attend an Espresso Italiano Tasting course? I can think of many good reasons, but one seems to me the most important: to go back to the roots of Espresso, to understand the culture in which it was born.

I have been working in the coffee business for some years (not counting the years I was at the university but already spent some time at the events of the International Institute of Coffee Tasters and of the Italian Espresso National Institute). And I have been travelling around the world in the last few years training people how to taste Italian Espresso.

What did I discover? Easy to say: coffee is culture, means it is strongly connected to real life. It is like Chinese tea: you cannot understand it unless a Chinese explains it to you. That’s because he or she is Chinese and was born and raisen up in the real Chinese tea culture. The same for Japanese tea. And for any other specific tea culture.

Let us make you discover the real Italian Espresso culture. If you are interested in understanding how to recognize and evaluate the real Italian Espresso, just download the brochure from the link below. You can also drop me an email at carlo.odello@italiantasters.com if you need further information about the course.

Download:

Italian Espresso Tasting course: brochure (PDF)

* Trainer and member of the board of the International Institute of Coffee Tasters

Espresso Italiano Tasting, the official handbook of the International Institute of Coffee Tasters, has just been published in Chinese. And more courses and seminars on tasting Italian Espresso are coming in Guangzhou next week (July 26th-31st). The classes will be held by Carlo Odello, member of the board of the International Institute of Coffee Tasters. For  more information about the courses and the book please contact Ms Jolin (jolin@acoffee.cn).

The International Institute of Coffee Tasters will organize a new edition of Caffè Italia, the Italian Espresso event, at Foodex 2011, the most important food exhibition in Japan (Tokyo, Makuhari Messe, Hall 3, booth C01, March 1-4).

The second edition of Caffè Italia will give visitors the opportunity of tasting six different Italian Espresso blends and evaluate them. For the first time visitors will have to judge the espresso blends using a tasting card. Caffè Italia will also host training sessions held by Chihiro Yokoyama.

Carlo Odello, member of the board of the International Institute of Coffee Tasters and communications manager of the Italian Espresso National Institute, will be at Caffè Italia, too. "We aim at spreading the culture of the real Italian Espresso and Caffè Italia is a great opportunity for us – Mr Odello said – Japan proved to be very sensitive to Italian Espresso, we now have more than 300 tasters in the country. We recently launched the Espresso Italiano Tasting classes in China and are looking for partners in other Asian countries such as Korea and Thailand".

Caffè is organized in cooperation with the International Institute of Coffee Tasters – Japan, the Italian Espresso National Institute and the Italian Trade Commission.

For more information: info@coffeetasters.jp, carlo.odello@italiantasters.com.

The International Institute of Coffee Tasters in cooperation with Koffiekoning will organize the first Espresso Italiano Tasting course in The Netherlands. The course will take place in IJsselstein on November 30.

For more information about the course, please visit the website of the International Institute of Coffee Tasters.

For applying or getting more information about the price, please get in touch with:

• Tim Vogt:  tim@koffiekoning.nl, mobile +31 6 5026 8819
• Paul Verbunt: ph +31 30 6876087, mobile +31 6 3889 0789

The International Institute of Coffee Tasters, in collaboration with Caffè Umbria, will bring its Espresso Italiano Tasting seminar to Seattle this fall. Carlo Odello, board member and trainer of the Institute, will explain the characteristics of a true Italian espresso and the correct methods of evaluation. The seminar will open with an introduction to sensory analysis of Italian espresso through the analysis of the main stages of evaluation: visual, olfactory, gustatory-tactile and aftertaste. In the aroma portion of the course, we will explore the fundamental aromas and most frequent flaws and their causes. With the help of the Italian Espresso Trialcard, the official espresso evaluation guide of the International Institute of Coffee Tasters and the Italian Espresso National Institute, we will taste, compare and discuss three different espresso extractions. 

Each seminar includes:

• Espresso Italiano Tasting, the official manual of the International Institute of Coffee Tasters
• The Italian Espresso Trialcard, the official espresso evaluation guide
• Three espressos for the purpose of instruction
• Certificate of Attendance

Dates and times:

• Saturday, October 30, 9:30 to 12:30
• Sunday, October 31, 9:30 to 12:30

Registration Deadline: October 4, 2010

For more information and registration, please click here or write to annamaria@caffeumbria.com

The International Institute of Coffee Tasters is pleased to announce that an Espresso Italiano Tasting course will be organised in cooperation with FAC S.p.a. – Porcellane ACF. The course will be held in English on the 12th of February 2010 at FAC’s headquarters in Albisola Superiore (Savona, Italy).

To get more information please write to Debora Tallarico (debora.tallarico@acf.it) or to Carlo Odello (carlo.odello@italiantasters.com). For a description of the course, please visit the website.

by Carlo Odello *

From Portland to Vancouver, via Seattle. Three cities, three states, two nations. But one great love for the quality of life and fine food. A love that express itself in a choice of high-level restaurants, expression of the diverse world cuisines that meet in this cities. A passion that involves the wine too, with its continued holding of more or less mundane events that bring in these cities the best producers worldwide.

And a visceral love for coffee. A fervent activity which is reflected in thousands of coffee shops, owned by the most important chains or independent. Yes, indeed: the independent ones, run by entrepreneurs who, in total financial autonomy, have decided to make coffee their business. And in many cases almost a reason for living. People that welcome you in the coffee shop with a pride and an enthusiasm that leaves you amazed.

Baristas who are not there by chance, people who made a precise choice and who prepared themselves for this. People ready to pull out a few thousand dollars to learn how to make a business plan for their shop, to understand how to manage it from a financial point of view, to develop a marketing that will give them a possibility more with respect to the fierce competition. Baristas who treat their equipment as objects of a liturgy: difficult to find a dirty machine, the metal always shines, the hoppers of the grinders are impeccable.

In any case there is something that leaves you a little confused. Because if it is true that the bow must be well tended if you want the arrow to go far, it is equally true that you must take a good sight. In most coffee shops you have the impression that the search for the perfection has led to a race in which who fills the filter the most wins. If you do not specify that you want a single espresso you will nearly always have a double, even triple one, considering that it is extracted from 20 grams of ground coffee. The feeling, as some Canadian friends confirm, is that they have misunderstood the concept of espresso: it has to be powerful, but someone said that power is nothing without control. Certainly, most of the cups go into cappuccinos, lattes and other beverages.

Yet, well begun is half done. And then, let’s start again, we said in the International Institute of Coffee Tasters. Well, we said, let’s see if we can bring the word of Italian espresso in such a complicated context. So we took the occasion of the invitation by Caffè Umbria, which for years has been working only with the Italian standard. So with the help of Pasquale Madeddu, Emanuele Bizzarri and Jesse Sweeney the first two Espresso Italiano Tasting courses were born. For the first time we went overseas, more precisely in Vancouver and Portland.

Our impression? At first a little difficulty by the participants to understand exactly the Italian standard, but at the end of the course, satisfaction on their part for the experience. It was helpful to them to hear the voice of Italy and they have finally taken the right measures of what is truly an Italian espresso. That’s the beauty of America: it is the land of opportunities. You just need to know how to catch them. The door is now open and some strange ideas about espresso have been eradicated, at least in the minds of our first students.

* Trainer and member of the board of the International Institute of Coffee Tasters