To espresso or not to espresso? BY LUCA MAJER – CEO TUTTOESPRESSO

BY LUCA MAJER – CEO TUTTOESPRESSO

To espresso or not to espresso?

Italy will be lobbying to obtain for real “Espresso Italiano” the Tsg (or
“Traditional Speciality Guaranteed”) status accordingly to the European Union
norms. Many rejoice. Nevertheless the road to international recognition will be
hardly paved with smooth stones. Will it be a useful journey, too?

Standards – to which I tend to reconnect Eu schemes such as the Tsg – do not
define state-of-the-art technology. They are a normative plateau upon which
different interest groups agree, in order to maximize their returns. A political
meeting point of consumer and industry agendas.

Our transalpine friends, the French, were the first to use laws against
mendacious product-representation to the public, in 1824 – but it was not until
the end of the XIX century with its epidemics of Phylloxera and the increase in
dishonest users of the “Bordeaux wine” denomination, that this issue became
relevant and carefully scrutinized. Only after the Crimean War (in the latter
half of the XIX century) and its steep rise in wheat prices, Chicago wheat
traders showed an interest in setting standards for their commodities, to avoid
uneven quality in their supplies.

In 1990 I witnessed the development of a European industry standard when, as
Chairman of the Evmma (the European Vending Machine Manufacturers’ Association),
I suggested to issue a software protocol between machines and payment systems,
i.e. coin-acceptor, change-giver, card reader, etc. Then hell broke loose. We
approved this technical standard only after furious discussions, and –funny to
remember- a voting session where by mistake the Council meeting endorsed the
standard with a 66% majority even if it needed 75% (nobody argued, probably too
stressed out to read the Association’s Statutes.) It was thus an un-sufficient
quorum that allowed the Mdb/Icp to become the (now famous) world-standard for
vending coin-mechanisms.

Standards require measure, similarly to our lives. That is: where do we draw
the line, between “good” and “bad”?

“Real Italian espresso” has been a tedious argument of insidious intent
amongst roasters, and -as such- ludicrous rules of thumb have been popularized
to define it. Think of “the 4 M’s” (in Italian: “macchina, macina, miscela,
manico” that is: machine, grinder, blend and skill) or the merrier “3 C’s (in
Napolitan: “Caz… come coce” that is: “f…, it’s really hot”.) Boutique roaster
Gianni Frasi had a more extravagant definition, when he noted that espresso was
the only coffee bearing on top “a golden disc”: “a solid light (…) sign of the
coming of the celestial Jerusalem”.

Fact is that any coffee appropriately brewed under pressure by machines built
after WWII will meet the 4 M’s, the three C’s  and even bear a metaphoric
Jerusalem on its top. Sensorialists like Ted Lingle or Luigi Odello, sprinkling
the topic with quality,  have suggested to draw an “edonic line” and define
espresso by the sensorial pleasure delivered to the drinker. Great move, if you
ask me.

But standards represent interest groups, hence requisites welcomed by some
might be scornfully commented by others. Granted that a “real Espresso Italiano”
will only use non-Italian coffee (Italians –since Mussolini’s occupation of
Ethiopia- have no local coffee plantations), all the rest is debatable,
including  defining as “Espresso Italiano” an espresso coffee brewed by an
Ethiopian bar-tender in Buenos Aires, with India-roasted Bourbon-Arabica beans
prepared in a Taiwan-made espresso machine.

Stg “Italian Espresso” will probably follow guidelines similar to the ones
used by process-certifications, the path beaten by standard-oriented coffees
such as the Fairtrade ones. It said that it will take years. Should then
“Espresso Stg” use too-wide guide-lines, or be defined with rules pleasing to
one particular interest group, coffee connoisseurs will not be caught off-guard:
they already know that you don’t follow norms when seeking state-of-the-art
espresso coffee.

Bob Dylan had said some forty years ago, “You don’t need a weather man to
tell which way the wind blows”.

Luca
Majer

TuTTOespresso CEO
www.Tuttoespresso.com