I would say that it is primarily the result of a reflection and a concern about the future of coffee.
I fell in the cup of coffee when I was a child... tasting first this beverage with milk and sugar before moving on to the short, strong and dark espresso.
Over the years, coffee has entered my daily life as a necessity. It became all in all… the morning shot, the digestive, the coffee break ; the coffee and cigarette, the shot that can save never-ending evenings or puts the end to long family meals; the one that keeps us awake ; the one that gives an excuse for a date or turns out to be your best ally for endless talk and debates...
To put it in a nutshell, the coffee of everyone and of the whole life. An easy and accessible drink that was rarely questioned about its origins and flavors, except for the ever-present debate between the adepts of the cup of Joe or the espresso kind.
20 years later, a real upheaval took place as I have started to work for a green coffee importer. By a random chance, I was entering into the world of “specialty coffee”. That’s when I (re)discovered the coffee. First through words - producers, farm, altitude; flower, cherry, pulp, mature, grains, fermentation, drying, parchment; diseases, parasites, treatment; sieve, quality control, tasting, roasting, barista ...
Then came the cupping ritual: Sip, slurp, suck, spit… Analyze, discuss, give your impressions. Timidly at first. Not easy for a non-initiate to put a name on a taste-feel! An aroma, a flavor, something hidden in our memory that we cannot identify. Until the moment when ... We got it! And we start enumerate: chocolate, caramel, vanilla, toasted almonds ... A sweet but intense fruit - peach, nectarine, pineapple, mango perhaps? Notes of berries, blueberry, blackcurrant... In coffee??!!
Yes it is...
But how is that possible? How can such a banal a product as coffee may disclose so many flavors and such a complexity?
There is not one but multiple answers to this question. In any case, it is far from simple and far from being acquired. Many experts and professionals are working hard to offer the very best of this product, and for them, every day is a challenge.
So Coffee Behind the Scenes, aims to unveil what happens when the curtain is down, to explore the story behind our cup of coffee.