COFFEE - A WAY OF LIFE

ARE YOU COFFEE LOVER?. Several observational studies indicate that coffee drinkers have a lower risk of death. In two very large studies those drinking coffee was associated with a 20% reduced risk of death in men and a 26% decreased risk of death in women, over 18 - 24 years. Currently coffee connoisseur Ettore Altamura introduces a new option for those looking to enjoy the Italian coffee culture in their living room. The NST report on how a click and a clack and the machine begins to wheeze as it fills an espresso cup with hot steaming water. This quickly humidifies the small one bedroom inside apartment-turned-office where the living room is taken up by stacks of coloured boxes against one wall and a large shelf against the other with various coffee machines on it. The cup needs to be warm before you fill it with coffee. If the cup is cold, it’ll spoil the taste. It’ll also cool down the coffee too fast. This is the right way to make a good cup of espresso at home. It’s the Italian way. Lifting a lever and then inserting a tiny white capsule pod into the crevice on top of the machine, Ettore urges me to push down on the lever until I hear a click. Gritting my teeth, I push with trepidation and am surprised that it clicks into place fairly easily. With a touch of a button, an aromatic rich scent permeates the air, instantly transforming the tiny space into one of the thousand coffee bars that’s scattered across Italy. The dark liquid fills the warm espresso cup and finishes with a smooth crema (a silky creamy coffee froth) on top. Passing me the minute cup, Ettore shares: “This espresso is a special blend of half Arabica and half Robusta by Covim. I’ve chosen Covim particularly because they’ve more than 40 years of experience in roasting beans in Genoa, Italy and its product is of premium quality. Smell it. It’s going to be a kick taste. This blog in "Anim Agriculture Technology" share a habit of drinking coffee as a way of life.

Mokitalia an importer of Covim coffee beans and hand-assembled coffee machines by Espresso del Capitano, may be a new player in the local coffee market but the passionate Italian behind the brand isn’t. Ettore has been in the coffee business for more than a decade and isn’t unfamiliar with Malaysia for he has made our country his home for the past 21 years. It was in 2000 when Lavazza hired me to help them set up an office here. They wanted to bring in the capsule coffee machines and it was very new then. It’s through them that I started gaining knowledge about these machines that changed much of the landscape of Italian coffee. These convenient machines have brought premium-like cafe coffees to homes and offices san barista experience. Just the thought of infusing it into a new market like Malaysia excited him. Coffee to Italians is like what iced chocolate is to us. It’s a breakfast drink, an afternoon pick-me-up, and a fitting conclusion after dinner. It’s a poignant part of their lifestyle that’s synonymous to their identity. And the Italian espresso is the base to every other Italian-styled java you can name on menus in cafes across the globe. Italians are introduced to the drink as young as 12. I remember my mother making a cafe latte for breakfast one day instead of the usual milk and chocolate. It then became a ritual every morning. She’d put on the Mokka pot and pour a little of the espresso into my milk. It was actually his aunt who lived in Bari, a small seaside town in the south of Italy where he was born, who really inculcated in him his love of coffee. “She really loves her coffee and every time I visited her in summer, she’d ask me to join her for a cup (of coffee). She’d put on the Mokka pot every couple of hours and I would drink with her. That’s because when you have coffee in Italy, you don’t have it alone.

Socialising over a cup of coffee is a way of life for the Italians. It may be a quickie when it comes to having a cuppa for them, but an important social quickie nonetheless. “Usually, when we pop into the coffee bar for our cup of espresso, it’s for a little pause in life. Only 1-2 minutes. And most of the time, we go to the same bar over and over so we don’t even need to order. The bartender will remember what you like. Even then, we still take time to say hi to the people in the bar. It’s understandable to assume that coffee is grown in Italy but in fact, it’s not. Coffee roasters in Italy actually source their beans from around the globe, some even as far as Indonesia. However, they’re the pioneers in producing the perfect espresso, a process where very hot water is forced under high pressure through finely ground and compacted coffee. That’s why people always ask me, ‘how did you all cheat the whole world?’ when they discovered this fact. It took months to source for the right coffee maker to pair with his choice of coffee grind. “There are more than 500 roasters in Italy and even more coffee machine makers. The choice to import capsule machines instead of a traditional one is simple, these machines can easily bring the Italian coffee culture to local homes effortlessly. To make a good cup of espresso you’ll need all three elements to align – a good barista, good beans and a good machine. But when you want a good cup of espresso at home, you won’t be able to have all of them. And Mokka pots aren’t something usual in Malaysian homes. That’s where the Mokitalia machines can 
help. Source: NST
Thanks.

By,
M Anem
Malaysia.
(Febuary 2021).