Behind a cup: the coffee you drink in 30 seconds took us months of work
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A few weeks ago a customer asked me how long it takes to make a coffee. I told her: "Two minutes. Or eight months. It depends on where you start counting."
She looked at me as if I were joking. I wasn't.
This is the first article in a series I've called Behind a cup. The idea is simple: to tell you what really happens before a coffee reaches you. The choices, the roasts, the tastings. And the mistakes too, because there are some, and anyone who tells you otherwise probably doesn't roast coffee.
It all starts a long way from Cagliari
When a new harvest comes in, the coffee I'll be roasting a few months later is still a 200-gram sample in a bag.
Before I order a lot, I taste it several times, on different days, sometimes with different people. A coffee that seems extraordinary on Monday morning has to be tasted again on Thursday afternoon, when you're tired and less enthusiastic. If it still convinces you then, it might be the right one.
In twelve years of work between Dublin, Australia and origin trips, I've learnt one thing: green coffee doesn't lie, but you have to know how to listen to it. A defect that seems small at the cupping table becomes a serious problem when you multiply it by a sixty-kilo lot.
Then comes the part everyone pictures: roasting
It happens in our lab on Via Santa Gilla, every week, in small batches.
What you don't see is everything else.
Every new coffee needs a series of test roasts. You start from a profile, taste, adjust. You change the batch size, move a development point, taste again. Sometimes the right profile comes on the third try. Sometimes on the tenth. Once, with a washed Colombia I really cared about, it took me weeks: it kept coming out flat and dull, and the problem wasn't the coffee. It was me. But that story deserves an article of its own.
Tasting is the real quality control
Every important roast goes across the cupping table. Cups in a row, a spoon, silence.
It isn't a show. It's the moment when the coffee tells you whether you've done your job well. We look for sweetness, clarity, balance. And above all we look for consistency: a coffee has to be good today, tomorrow and in three weeks, when you open it at home.
It's the same method we use when we prepare our selections for roasting competitions: taste, take notes, adjust. Every time.
And then there are the things nobody talks about
Sacks to move. Labels to print. Degassing time to respect before shipping. Roaster maintenance. The mornings when the humidity changes and yesterday's profiles no longer work.
None of this ends up in photos. But it's exactly this work, repeated every week, that makes the difference between just any coffee and a coffee you can trust.
Why I'm telling you all this
Not to tell you our coffee is the best. I don't like people who talk like that, and it's usually not even true.
I'm telling you because I believe that understanding what's behind a cup changes the way you drink it. When you know there's a farmer, months of work and dozens of tests behind that sip, the coffee stops being a quick drink and becomes something worth a few minutes of your attention.
In the next chapters of this series I'll take you inside a roasting mistake, inside the preparation for a competition, and inside the journeys that gave Essentzia its name.
A note from the roaster
Every article on this blog comes from my own direct experience: twelve years in cafés, roasteries and at origin, thousands of roasts on the Giesen in our Cagliari lab and just as many tastings at the cupping table. If I write something, it's because I've seen it happen in front of me.
— Gianluca, Essentzia Coffee Project
Frequently asked questions
How long does it take from green coffee to cup?
It depends on the lot, but between choosing samples, ordering, the coffee arriving, test roasts and fine-tuning the profile, it can take anywhere from a few weeks to several months.
What makes a coffee "artisan"?
Roasting in small batches, freshness and direct control of every step: selection, roast profile and tasting. In an artisan roastery each coffee is looked after by a person, not by an industrial line.
Why is freshly roasted coffee different from supermarket coffee?
Mainly because of freshness. Coffee roasted a few days ago keeps aromas that are lost after months on a shelf. And at Essentzia the roast date is always printed on the bag.
When do you roast?
Every week, in small batches, in our lab on Via Santa Gilla in Cagliari. The roast date is always printed on the bag.
Keep reading
- Best coffee in Cagliari: where to drink specialty coffee
- Behind a cup there's a mistake (coming soon)
- Behind a cup there's a competition (coming soon)
If you'd like to taste the result of all this work, take a look at our artisan coffees. And if you're in Cagliari, come and see us at the roastery: we'll tell you about the coffee while you taste it.