Notes on Coffee... Mokaflor Roasting Company Class

This week I went to a coffee class.  There is a local roasting place that makes delicious coffee and offers a class on the origins of coffee, the differences in type of beans, and an espresso 101 class.  I went, and for two days shook head-to-toe with all the caffeine.  

Mokaflor is the name of the roasting company, they also have a coffee shop in the center of Florence called Chiaroscuro.  We had happened upon the coffee shop, when it was recommended by a nearby shopkeeper as being a great place for coffee.  And it was.  Filled with locals and tourists alike we had delicious coffees, at prices that can only exist here in Italy.  Where, you can sometimes pay 8 euros for a gelato, you can order an espresso for under 1 euro. Bizarre.

Here are the bags of unroasted beans, they get roasted in small batches:

By, only one man it seemed the days I was there, what a fabulous job:

He waits for the beans to match the colour of his control batch, and then voila! Out they come:

He looks very proud and happy, as I would be.  The smell was absolutely glorious.  I could died right then.  I wonder why it is, there are no warm coffee bean spa treatments... I would pay good money to be lowered into a bath of coffee beans and have my problems melt away.  Maybe there is... did I say good money?  Anyways, moving on.  Here they are being constantly moved so that they can cool down a bit. One they are cooler, they are sucked into the correct tube:

Where they are held in chambers for a few days while the gasses leave the coffee beans.  They are then, packaged as single origin coffees, or made into blends which can suit all tastes, and are sent all over the world. It seems this man does the packaging:

There were a few more people, one of whom I wish I had taken a picture of.  The "taster" was his title, and how I will always remember him.  Dressed all in coffee brown, he looked like the guy in the american version of "the office" Steve.... Carrel? Something like that... But a long-sleeved Lacoste brown polo (neck buttoned up) tucked into his matching brown dockers, with brown socks, brown loafers and a brown belt.  With brown hair and brown eyes.  He wore this both days.  Very sharp, but very brown.  He tastes the coffees to make sure their blends are consistant since the tastes and potency of the beans can vary slightly from batch to batch.

We were lucky enough to try multiple samples of their different coffees, and to actually taste the difference between arabica and robusta, between ethiopian and indonesian.  I loved it.  Then we made many cappuccinos, learning how to make the perfect froth and try to create some latte art.  I kept on expecting to make something that was picture worthy, but it never happened, so neither did a picture.