How to recognize and demand traceability and transparency
What do wine and coffee have in common? Apparently very little if we talk about taste, but both products are obtained from a fruit given by a plant.
As everyone knows, wine is produced from grapes, just as coffee comes from the cherries / drupe of the coffee plant, this may seem like a very simplistic summary, but which in its simplicity contains the clear-cut truth.
Using similarities between these two products will help me dispel false myths and better explain how important traceability is also in the world of coffee. For example, have you ever heard of a 100% Italian wine? When we talk about wine, we require much more information that gives us an idea of what we will then receive in the glass. Today a wine in a restaurant as at home is bought by region or micro region of origin (let's simply think of a classic Chianti), after which the botanical variety is chosen, and always to stay in Tuscany, a good Sangiovese and finally the fermentation processes and aging (eg: in wooden or steel barrels). While coffee at best, we buy it with the simple description of 100% Arabica which always for comparison would mean "100% grape wine", as you can understand we are not told a damn thing. I would like to clarify the subject and specify that like wine, coffee has its own country of origin, its micro-production area, its manufacturing process that modifies its taste, as well as the importance of knowing the people who produce that specific coffee.
It would be nice if from tomorrow when you go to buy coffee you had the same demands as when you buy a wine, for example a good coffee produced in Colombia in the Cauca region, castillo botanical variety and natural process, produced by Finca El Paraiso of Diego Lopez Diaz. We are too far from this transparency and I would be satisfied with much less at the moment, the important thing would be that there was more curiosity on the part of the consumer but also of the barista for what one drinks or serves, rather than treating the coffee only as if it were a medicine, and ingest it only for the need to wake up.
Ask for more traceability and transparency and you will discover a beautiful world, the wonderful world of coffee.