Entrepreneur Brings Sicilian Espresso to Town
I found this article in the Jamaica Plain Gazette, a small Boston newspaper.
When Francesco Calderaro came to the United States from Palermo, Sicily eight years ago to pursue a master’s degree, he was amazed at some of the things that passed for “authentic” Italian food, he said in an interview last week. The JP resident said he was particularly shocked at most of the coffee that was being passed off as genuine Italian espresso.
“Since I moved here, I’ve been trying all the brands of espresso coffee from Italy. I couldn’t believe the coffee was so different in taste from what I was used to in Italy,” said Calderaro. “I go there every year and have my coffee, and it’s always such an experience. The aftertaste is always great.”
Calderaro said the espresso coffees popular here in the United States are not what Italians get in Italy. “The coffees [in the US] are always expensive and bitter. When you spend more money to get something that’s bitter, that makes you bitter,” Calderaro joked.
Now the Moss Hill resident is looking to bring the coffee he has been drinking since he was a child here to Boston. He is working to import Al Moretto Coffee, an Italian brand that has been made for three generations by the same family, to gourmet food stores around New England with his new distribution company, Tutto Buono Inc.
“Being small, they can still focus on the quality. After the first [world] war, that is when the first generation started. Now the third generation… is keeping the tradition, focusing on quality,” said Calderaro. “The company’s owner is really happy that finally someone like me is giving them an opportunity to do business in this country.”
Calderaro said Al Moretto coffees are made with high-quality Brazilian Arabica beans, which are more expensive and more difficult to grow. He stressed that not all Arabica beans are the same and that the bean makes all the difference when it comes to taste.
“Whenever you see something that says Arabica coffee and it’s really cheap, it could be from that [bean] family, but not from a quality region,” said Calderaro. It’s just like wine. Pinot noir [grapes] can be grown in your backyard, but then the pinot noir grown in Burgundy is some of the best in the world because of the soil, temperature and who’s doing the growing,” said Calderaro.
Al Moretto coffees are now available in Jamaica Plain at the Harvest Cooperative Market as well as other locations around Boston and Providence.
I agree that the espresso I got while in Sicily was very good, but it was due to a number of different things. For example, the water profile, coffee freshness, and brewing process have a big impact on the resulting shot of espresso. The fact that the coffee is now going to be shipped across the Atlantic will result in a coffee that is very stale. It’s very easy to get your hands on fresh roasted coffee here in the States. Using fresh roasted coffee, good water, and learning the right process for brewing/extraction will yield the best results.
Filed under: Arabica Coffee Beans on November 20th, 2007
I represent Al Moretto coffee here in the Greater Boston area. I would like to reply to the above comment concerning coffee being shipped across the Atlantic arriving stale. In acuality, the coffee beans from Al Moretto coffee roasting company are shipped from Sicily immediately after being roasted and have up to a two year shelf life. This is due to the fact that we use atmosphere controlled, vacuum packed bags which are specifically manufactured to prevent the coffee from becoming stale. Contrary to the now widespread technique of vacuum-packing, this technique is not carried out on the product, but on the packaging, thus leaving unaltered the features that we have worked so hard to obtain in our products: aroma, taste and freshness.
While it is easy to find local roasted coffee here in the US, Al Moretto is an Italian espresso roasted coffee overseen by a master Italian roaster. You can’t get that here in the US! Furthermore, many times the bags that local roasters use are brown paper bags which while being environmentally sound, do nothing to preserve the freshness of the beans. Having spent the first 30 years of my life in Sicily, I can say that the water profile in Sicily is certainly substandard to the water here in the USA. And lastly, the brewing processes in Sicily are easily mimicked here in the USA with the variety of Italian brewing methods and machines easily found and available for use in your home.
I’m a local roaster who is proud to package his coffee in brown paper bags. My coffee moves off the self within two weeks of it’s roasted date. I’ll put it’s freshness up against any environmentally sound vacuum sealed bag that is over 4 weeks old. Once the vacuum sealed bag is opened, it starts taking a nose dive faster than you can say Italian Master Roaster. There is no competition for a high quality specialty coffee that is locally roasted by a roaster who knows how to craft the coffee.
+1 Redeye is right, our goal is to ship or locally deliver all orders the same day the sweet arabica coffee beans are roasted. Our service gives our customers a taste that cant even be compared to store bought coffees.
Eric
http://www.idahoroasting.com