“With coffee you make peace”, says Antonio Cirillo as he leans against a bar in central Naples, an area that’s seen its fair share of strife.
He gestures in the air, explaining the importance of coffee to the people of Naples, among the most architecturally impressive and vibrant cities in the world.
One of us recently took a week off work to sit the rigorous Q Grader course… and amazingly passed!
Designed by the Coffee Quality Institute, the programme trains coffee professionals to grade green coffee and cup in a standardized way, helping to make comparisons and identify ‘specialty’ coffee.
I’m sitting in our local bakery Azimos in Bogota’s ‘La Macarena’ neighbourhood after filling my ‘canasta’ to the brim with juicy greens. It is a great place to source organic vegetables on Saturdays and enjoy traditional Colombian dishes like ‘caldo de costilla’ or ‘changua’, as well as classic breakfasts and vegetarian options (the oat pancakes with green apple, yogurt and honey looks yummy!).
In the fabled university town of Oxford, one woman is making a name for herself.
Milly Barr left Colombia in 2000 to study in the UK, and four years ago decided to set up Exotic Coffee Roasters.
Cuba – land of cigars, rum and sugar, all wrapped up in a salsa beat.
That’s the cliché, and after a recent visit we can say, it's true! There is, however, also coffee production.
In fact Cuba used to be a coffee powerhouse, generating more money from the tasty bean than sugar in the 19th Century. The arrival of the Castro brothers and subsequent breakup of the USSR saw investment levels drop, leading to a slump in production.
