Java!

For the Coffee Obsessed

Many that I know, from Millenials to Baby Boomers, are obsessed with their coffee.  The lines in Starbuck’s every morning, not to mention at our local roasters and coffee houses such as Hampton Coffee Company, North Fork Coffee Roasters, Aldo’s, and One Girl Cookies put the exclamation point at the end of that sentence!!  This is a testament to their product and their baristas, and the overall “coffee experience” one enjoys there.

However, I have noticed that increasingly, those “in the know” come back to Illy coffee as their favorite for home espressos, cappuccinos and lattes.  This trend seems to apply across devices and formats:  pods, ground, and whole bean.  This was a hot topic of discussion at a dinner I attended recently.  All at the table—4 households represented--had reverted to Illy at home.  They found it consistently had the best flavor and freshness for use in their home coffee makers.  Then, I learned the most incredible thing.  There is actually a position--as in job--of coffee taster!!  Really, not kidding.  Why didn’t I know of this before?  I think it would have been the perfect job for me.  In fact, the father of the host of the dinner that evening WAS one of the official coffee tasters for the City of New York.  It was their job to taste and grade the coffee that was imported into the U.S.  And, he thought Illy coffee was the best coffee too! (As did his son today.)

For those that are interested, I looked it up and coffee taster is still a position, significant enough that there is even an ERI salary report on it!  Most positions these days, it seems, are for corporate entities.  There are also coffee associations that can give you advice on becoming a real coffee taster.

An additional note: the espresso maker in the photo (Expobar) was my husband’s—he is our resident barista.  It was one of our best machines—yes, we have had a long line of them much to the amusement of our friends--until flames shot out of it while in use.  Now we use a Rancilio Silvia, reportedly the most common model in homes in Italy.  And I am being serious, at the coffee machine purveyors, they refer to this model as Ms. Silvia.  I’m laughing when I am writing this, but it’s true.  I believe this also reflects just how nuts we are about our coffee these days.