The 56th Fancy Food Show edition opens in New York on the 27th of June. Throughout the entire exhibition, that closes on the 29th of June, visitors can enjoy Caffè Italia in the area of the Italian Trade Commission (ICE), booths # 2704-18 / 2805-13 / 2817-19 at the Javits Convention Center.

The Italian Espresso National Institute, in collaboration with the Italian Trade Commission (ICE) and the sponsorship of the International Institute of Coffee Tasters, will offer to visitors seven coffee blends of different Italian regions. Torrefazione Saturno, La Genovese, Filicori and Zecchini, Mokarico, Caffen, Zicaffè and Torrefazione Paranà have joined Caffè Italia.

The Fancy Food Show is one of the most important North American food industry exhibitions. The last edition registered 24 thousand visitors that evaluated 180 thousand products of every kind brought by over 2,500 exhibitors of 81 nations.

Do you want to be a member of the staff of Coffee Experience 2010? Two professional espresso machines, 30 coffee grinders, coffee in beans and pods: more than 7,000 coffees to be served in five days.

If you want to join our staff as a barista, please write to carlo.odello@italiantasters.com. Coffee Experience will cover your accomodation in Italy.

Coffee Experience 2010, Verona, Aprile 8-12: the largest coffee tasting event in the world.

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

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.

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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