Technology has now become an essential component not only in our daily lives, but also in the working world bringing with it numerous advantages. At Danesi for instance we have equipped ourselves with modern and innovative resources that optimize in the specific processing and production steps in order to ensure the best quality of coffee produced overtime.
To our great satisfaction and pride, we recently introduced in our production line a new system to clean green coffee consisting of a new optical sorting machine providing great technological support to the production process. Through this state-of-the-art machinery it will be possible to introduce only the best quality coffee beans with the best characteristics in the roasting process, “scientifically” eliminating beans that present the smallest defects. The result? Only one hundred percent quality blends are created of an even better taste!
However, at Danesi we firmly believe that technology cannot and should not represent the only resource to rely on. There are human components that were, are and will still be irreplaceable for a long time. Due to this particular reason they make the difference.
Between tradition and innovation
Danesi Caffé is a company with over 100 years of history and tradition. From the earliest times when coffee was milled manually and transported in sacks on tricycles around the streets of Rome it was also the time when my great grand-father Alfredo opened the first coffee emporium in Tomacelli street. A lot of time has gone by but Danesi has been able to grow always combining and balancing technology, people, and tradition.
In the last 100 years Danesi has been gradually adding new and more modern equipment and machinery (some of which are unique for the Italian market!). Progressively it has also restructured its assets and management to keep pace with times and it has expanded its presence both in Italy and abroad.
Yet there are aspects that have not changed and will not. For most the family management (we are now in the fourth generation), the sincere passion, the human component, and the immense love for coffee is present in all aspects.
Live your coffee
Coffee should be lived with passion and consistency. That’s why I love traveling as much as possible, go to the plantations (Brazil, Guatemala, Rwanda, and many other countries of the globe), to see the plants with my own eyes, feel the soil, study and understand the new cultivation techniques.
But also to talk to the local growers, learn about them and listen to their histories, share their satisfaction for a good crop for that year, the fruit of their work and sacrifice, but also the preoccupation for a constantly uncertain future.
The thing that I like the most when I walk in the rows of coffee plants is to touch the branches, the leaves and to smell and taste the red cherries that are waiting to be picked. I like to suck and taste the pulp letting them stimulate the tip of my tongue with the sweetness and my taste buds sliding down my palate.
I also love the time spent in the tasting room sampling one by one the coffees I have to choose to compose our blends. Sometimes I close my eyes in order to savor with all my senses the coffees that give me the feeling of chocolate and toffee, peach and apricot, a basket of citrus fruits, or of a sweet spicy dish.
Then I open my eyes, I rinse my mouth, and I start from the beginning: It is the senses and sensations, driven by experience, to give the final response and make me decide if all this will be transformed, through the proper processing and thanks to technology, in Danesi blends created to be true “pastries” to be tasted at the end of every meal. Never bitter. Never sour. Never bland and astringent, but round and sweet to which you never need to add anything.
The Sommelier of Coffee
Do you now that coffee is just like wine? It is tasted to evaluate its organoleptic characteristics, qualities and properties. It is the process of cupping. Be careful: doing it is not so easy, and it is not for everybody, “technical skills” are needed, sensitivity, and most importantly a lot of passion and experience.
I studied and worked hard to get the official certificate of “Q Grader” of coffee. Putting myself in the game in the first person. I did this precisely for the love that I have had for coffee since my childhood, and thanks to my family tradition and the Company and for what I feel for this unique drink and its aroma.
I remember the stories that grandfather Nino told me and my sisters when he on the eve of the Second World War used to go to Naples, the land import of the green coffee nearest to Rome with a FIAT Topolino, loading two bags at a time. It was when, at the age of 13, I saw my grandfather prepared with skill and meticulousness, a coffee with a mocha.
He watched it until the coffee came out and then poured it into a cup, and drunk it with his eyes closed, at that point, so much curiosity and passion trigged inside me for coffee.
A continuous research
Coffee is a living product, it is in continuous transformation. There are many species and varieties, and every single factor (climate, geography, soil composition, cultivation techniques, and processing of drupes, roasting, preparation, etc.) affects its characteristics and taste. This is why it is not possible to test and taste a coffee only once and “live on residuals.” No!: quality must be checked (and selected) continuously, not only through cutting edge machinery, but also thanks to hands, eyes, nose, mouth, and… sensibility.
When we receive the new coffee samples in the factory, we first put them through a manual selection bean by bean. Each green bean is evaluated thanks to our senses: its surface, its shape and consistency, its color, the presence of imperfections, etc.
Only those who pass this strict and severe control are chosen and subsequently reselected in large quantities by means of our most modern technological machines.
Finally, they are processed, toasted and transformed into traditional Italian coffee. When the blends are ready, in fact it is still time for tests and tasting: observing, sniffing, tasting… And then? Then we talk, we compare the product (so many beautiful and compassionate conversations with my sisters and my father Roberto!), it’s time to make the decision: all is needed to understand, choose and select only the most and best intriguing qualities.
The Coffee Experience
In short, coffee is first of all an experience: sensory and cognitive. Secondly, come into play machinery and cutting-edge equipment that help to complete a process. Only through these steps coffee can become an experience of maximum pleasure for the final consumer.
This is why at Danesi Caffé the most modern and refined technology will always be flanked (or in this case I would say “guided”?) by human knowledge and sensitivity. That is why we are able to offer you with sincere pride and satisfaction a high-quality coffee. A coffee to be enjoyed with your heart, your head, and all your senses.
Simply… Danesi Caffé!
Ilaria Danesi
