Fioresso launches its first two espresso flavours

Over the years, wine has become the subject of an entire culture. Wine connoisseurs have come up with the most remarkable descriptions to indicate the character of a wine. But what few people know is that coffee is a complex product with at least as many characteristics. Did you know, for instance, that roasted coffee has no fewer than 800 aromas?

The two most essential factors in enhancing them are the quality of the coffee beans and that of the roaster. The differences among coffee beans are enormous. They range from bargain-basement varieties selling for fifty cents a kilo to truly exclusive coffees for which some will pay hundred euros a kilo without turning a hair.

Single origin coffee

‘Ordinary’ coffee brands have absolutely no qualms about combining these cheap coffees with beans of somewhat better quality. ‘Blending’ is the term used in the world of coffee roasting. It keeps the pricing for consumers who can’t really be called coffee connoisseurs at an attractive level. Blending, however, doesn’t yield excellent quality. This is why Fioresso favours the opposite extreme: single origin coffee.

The world’s most expensive coffee beans

This is coffee made from a single type of bean – in this case, one of the more expensive coffee beans produced on plantations throughout the world. The beans that make it through the strict selection process come from Ethiopia and Costa Rica. (The exact location is indicated on the boxes that provide the Google Maps coordinates.) At these plantations, the beans are still harvested manually by pickers who know exactly which bean is ripe and which is not. Unlike the machine harvesting used by cheaper brands, this means that the selection process actually begins at harvesting.

Roasting enhances the flavour of Fioresso coffee

Next comes the roasting process. The beans rotate at high speed at a temperature starting at 200 degrees Celsius. Roasting brings out the flavour of coffee beans: their sugars, carbohydrates and amino acids are transformed to produce those 800 different aromas.

A lightly roasted bean produces filter coffee, medium-roasted beans have some more character, and dark-roasted beans taste rich and bold. Fioresso’s first two flavours fall into this last category: intense espressos that release their delicate flavours once they hit the taste buds. Whereas experienced professional coffee tasters – known for their slurping – can undoubtedly differentiate many more flavours, it’s easier for the average Fioresso connoisseur to remember this: Sidamo has nutty nuances while Bella Vista is reminiscent of fresh fruit.

Both of these espresso flavours are available in the familiar Fioresso capsules that can only be used in the Fioresso designer espresso machine.