WHY COFFEE?
Everything runs on caffeine. We do not realize how important a cup a coffee is to our everyday lives. Last week our Social Media Social Food class went to a little coffee roastery, Dini Caffe. We were lucky enough to get a behind the scene tour of the facility and process of this business. Tucked away, this little hidden gem in the Santo Spirito district of Florence was a perfect way to start our mornings. Before visiting Dini Caffe, we could have never predicted the immense process that coffee producers have to take in order to produce our cups of coffee in the morning. This allowed us to have a better understanding on how important each bean is that goes into a cup of coffee.
THE STORY BEHIND THE CUP
Beyond the hands-on experience, we also learned about the history of Dini Caffè. Established over 80 years ago in 1939. The roastery has built a reputation for producing some of the finest and most authentic coffee beans in Florence. Serena, a lovely third generation owner at Dini Caffe walked us through the process of coffee making from how the coffee beans are harvested, grinded, mixed, and lastly served. She reminded us that coffee isn’t about quantity, but about quality. Dini takes pride in every espresso produced from the blended recipes, and you can really taste it in their products. We observed the machines that do this process and the different elements that go into coffee making. Fro example we learned about how the beans are harvested from cherries in the “coffee belt”. It takes almost 50 beans of coffee to make one espresso, which is about 25 HAND PICKED cherries!! Next time you drink a cup of coffee, think about how tremendous and exceptional that is! The best part of it all, we go to try AMAZING coffee!! We had the opportunity to try their amazing “Granbar” coffee bean blend in the form of an authentic Italian caffe. We then tried a show stopping cappuccino… 10/10. This experience was life changing and definitely a must when visiting Florence!
THE PROCESS:
A look into the process of how a coffee bean can become a cup of coffee or an espresso shot. First the beans need to be harvested. They are harvested from farms around the world, preferably in the bean belt. Dini Caffe has personally picked each farm and location due to conditions for both the employees and the quality of the beans produced. They take pride in the locations they work with along with each bean being hand picked, therefore each is perfectly ripe! They are then transferred to the facility to start the roasting process. This is a long process that has many different important aspects that are necessary in order to create the most authentic beans for coffee. There are many machines used, such as a roaster. Which is programmed to know the exact temperature for each type of bean to be perfectly roasted. Then the beans are separated and combined into the different variations before being packaged to be used all over the world.
By: Samantha Pereira and Olivia Krukonis
