Another lightweight bit of promotional tat from the Age

beanflying

After an attempt to spam and spruik brand X coffee here last week without invitation, time to wear some ridicule and derision for your comments in this article.

http://www.theage.com.au/entertainment/restaurants-and-bars/a-short-sweet-road-to-revelation-20110926-1ksj5.html

"Pitzy Folk from try hard SPAMMER Coffee, who travels to Italy twice a year to check on his coffee supplies. He believes Italian coffee is the best because Italians roast top-quality beans. ''I roast in Italy purely because of the availability of the best green beans."

If you want stale over roasted beans you can now find out there to go  :P

mycuppa

on 1317285548:

After an attempt to spam and spruik brand X coffee here last week without invitation, time to wear some ridicule and derision for your comments in this article. http://www.theage.com.au/entertainment/restaurants-and-bars/a-short-sweet-road-to-revelation-20110926-1ksj5.html "Pitzy Folk from try hard SPAMMER Coffee, who travels to Italy twice a year to check on his coffee supplies. He believes Italian coffee is the best because Italians roast top-quality beans. ''I roast in Italy purely because of the availability of the best green beans." If you want stale over roasted beans you can now find out there to go  :P

Yep - they also try very, very hard to say how fresh it is - freighted by air weekly to ensure freshness. Whilst I won't be drawn into any form of slander as I'm not aware of the facts, I find it very difficult to accept (or believe) airfreight of bulk goods coffee by the pallet is affordable and commercially viable - the cost differential between air and sea for bulky goods is a few orders of magnitude - sending a few pallets by air is like more expensive than the manifest. Despite the strong $AU, the price of oil is still high, so is freight, customs, etc. and all the handling costs. Taking the thought even further, if it was indeed truly air-freighted I would wonder out loud how they could sell it competitively alongside locally roasted coffee given the beans are making 2 sets of journeys from origin to roast and then from roast to buyer. To the best of my knowledge, Italian roasters do not source the best quality beans with the exception of Illy. They may, however, source high quality robusta, for use as a 20 - 40% blend component, but the predominant use of up to 50% commercial grade Brazil Santos and Mogiana in their blends would indicate they are sourcing for cost, not necessarily for quality. As coffee businesses get larger, more focus is placed on saving $ and cents per kilo - it's all about reducing costs. There are quite a few imported Italian coffees in Australia that are landed here for just over $10- $11/kilo wholesale (at the moment with strong $AU) all having a 2 year shelf-life and consisting of dark, oily beans lacking aroma - that is their style and I am not knocking it. I guess you have to ask yourself how can a coffee be created from the finest greens at $11 landed - perhaps my calculator has a bug and can't add up correctly.

beanflying

This is just more of trying to continue the myth that Italians are obviously the best espresso as they invented the process. They certainly DID NOT invent the coffee roasting process and like most of central Europe arrived late in the piece. Lots of rubbish roasts and rubbish espresso produces there like here unfortunately and if you compound that with throwing beans at reduced pressure and non temperature controlled environments then I fail to see how adding 1 week and likely 2 weeks shipping is going to get you a good result. That's all before you get to the dubious kwality and over roasting the good flavours out of the bean as Italian roasts tend to be. Going off Rant for a bit now  ;D

Brett H

If Italian coffe is so good why are baristi being replaced by pod machines in Italy?  Seems to me that if the pod or superauto operated machines are becomming common place in cafes, the 'bar' can't be particularly high for Italian espresso.  Otherwise there'd be a riot.  As for the rest of the article I just shook my head knowing full well that the vast majority would read that tripe and not be revolted by the charletonsm.