La Fabbrica del caffè -   THE ORIGINS OF COFFEE In the beginning Coffea was only a very beautiful plant native to some tropical areas, with snow-white flowers and red berries like morello cherries which were of no use at all to man. It was the greed of some Yemeni goats attracted by both the leaves and fruit of the plant which wakened the interest of some Muslim scholars. They noticed that when the goats ate the fruit, they began to jump around and keep awake at night. Seeing that their more stately camels also acted in the same way when they ate the coffee berries, the scholars were soon convinced that the plant had magical qualities and so they dedicated their time to looking for a way of making an infusion which would keep them awake during their long nights of prayer. At least, that is how the legend goes. Putting the legend aside, what is known for certain is that after 1400 the drink made from the coffee plant spread like lighting from one religious centre to another, until the lay population began to come into contact with it. From then on its success knew no boundaries or borders. In Turkey, for example, coffee-drinking was taken up so quickly and widely that coffee was soon known as "Islam’s wine". As for the spread of coffee through the West, it was no different from that of other plants, vegetables and seeds which have come from the Arab world into ours. Its spread was facilitated by the great trade and colonial routes. The first coffee shops were quick to appear in those European cities which had most contact with the Muslim world, like Marseilles (1559) and Venice. The first coffee house was opened in Venice in 1570 by Prospero Alfino, a physician and botanist who had come across the "black drink" during a stay in Egypt and decided to introduce it to his fellow Venetians. The success of coffee was so immediate that other houses sprang up in Venice and elsewhere in Italy. In cities like Milan, Turin, Florence and Rome these meeting-places, forefathers of our present coffee bars, soon became important reference points for business deals and discussions of politics and culture.   COFFEE AND ITS WORLD Before becoming the drink we are used to consuming, coffee had to cover a long and complicated path. It all started with a plant native to Africa called Coffea which exists in about a hundred species but only two are used to obtain the blends we taste every day: Coffea Arabica and Coffea Robusta. The better quality is Arabica, which supplies about three quarters of the world’s production.   COFFEA ARABICA There are different varieties of Arabica, but the prestige of this quality is due above all to the famous Moka, grown especially in the Arabia Peninsula. It produces fairly small coffee beans of a coppery-green colour, slightly longer than average and flattish. Highly prized are also Coffea Tipica and Coffea Bourbon, found especially in Brazil. The ideal climate for this plant to bear fruit must have an average temperature of about 20°, while the ground must be rich with minerals, like that of volcanic origin and be higher than 600 metres of altitude.   COFFEA ROBUSTA Because the Arabica plantations were delicate, subject very often to illnesses which decimated crops, other varieties of Coffea were introduced onto the market. Only one of these managed to carve out some space for itself and create its own market: Coffea Canephora, better known as Robusta. Besides being more illness-resistant, this variety of Coffea has the advantage of flowering all year round, even at ground level, thus guaranteeing continuous production and lower installation costs. In comparison to Arabica, this variety has a characteristic more bitter aftertaste, due to the higher grade of acidity in its beans.   COFFEE HARVESTING The coffee plant produces fleshy fruit called berries or cherries which become bright red when they are fully ripe. Each fruit contains two precious seeds ­ future coffee beans. Harvesting the fruit is a complex process because it grows in bunches which do not ripen uniformly. And it is only by selecting the single cherries that the best qualities are obtained. Once the fruit has been harvested, it can be treated in two different ways. The dry method, where the cherries are sun-dried, produces what is called a "natural" coffee. With the wet method, the fruit is immersed in water tubs to get rid of the flesh, producing a "washed" coffee, which is considered superior to the " natural" one.   COFFEE ROASTING When coffee started to spread as a largely consumed drink, the beans were normally roasted by the drinkers themselves, who prepared a small quantity to drink at once. Coffee roasting was later developed on an industrial scale with a standardisation of different conditions ­ time and temperature ­ in order to obtain the best characteristics and results. In the roasting processes, it is very important to know the intrinsic characteristics of the different types of coffee, because each reacts to heat in a different way, especially as far as colour, humidity loss, grade of swelling are concerned, as well as of course characteristic aroma and taste. Since only a few kinds of coffee possess simultaneously all the characteristics which give the drink the top characteristics required ( aroma, flavour, fullness), coffee roasters do not normally put a single type of coffee directly on the market, but blend it with other coffees selected in different percentages, so that the different characteristics of the coffees complete one another and satisfy the needs of the consumer. It is therefore evident that the blends cannot have a constant composition since they have to satisfy tastes that vary not only from country to country but also from region to region and from one group of consumers to another.   BLENDING AND GRINDING Besides the variety of Coffea it comes from, the secret of a good coffee lies principally in the blend it is made from and the grinding of the beans. The "ideal blend" is a hidden art that every coffee producer conserves with care. This is why every brand has a particular aroma. Nevertheless a good blend is generally based on two factors: composition and grade of roasting. Experts maintain that the best blends are the result of a combination of four to five varieties of coffee coming from different areas so that the different characteristics are unified to enhance the flavour. Different qualities of either Arabica or Robusta alone can be mixed together, just as the two varieties can be mixed together in different qualities. There are so many possibilities that each blend manages to acquire its own characteristic taste. How the coffee is ground depends on how it is to be made up as a drink. If it is to be used in a "moka" coffee machine, it must be ground medium-fine. If it is to be used in an espresso machine, it needs to be finer. However it is ground, it must never be too big or it will not yield its aroma. Likewise it must not be ground too fine, or this will leave with drink with a burnt aftertaste.   STORAGE Once coffee is roasted, it is subject to an aroma loss, so it is important to know how to store it in order to conserve the same aroma.Coffee is in fact subject to the oxidising action of the air which turns the oils rancid and disperses the volatile components in the aroma. When coffee is ground, deterioration is even quicker because a greater surface of coffee is contact with the air. For this reason the industry has adopted two different methods of packaging coffee, either vacuum or pressure packed, in order to guarantee a longer conservation of the product so that the consumer has a cup of coffee with the aroma of coffee that tastes freshly ground.

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