A TALK WITH WOMEN LEADING THE FIELD

ELISA URDICH THE ITALIAN WOMAN WHO EMBRACED THE SPECIALTY COFFEE

Although our machines are found worldwide, we want to talk about a place in Treviso that managed to draw our attention and that is only a few miles away from our Headquarters!Taste Coffee & More has recently ranked 9th among the best coffee shops in Italy and Elisa, one of the owners (along with Fabio), was nominated as Best Barista of the Year.We had a chat with her to find out how the idea of Taste was conceived and what it is like to offer specialty coffee in Italy one year after its opening. How was Taste conceived? Taste is a project we had been coveting and dreaming of for quite some time and which we started conceiving and planning after our adventure in Australia. Taste was opened about a year ago, how can you describe this first anniversary? At the beginning it was all extremely difficult. A year has gone by since we opened Taste and we consider ourselves very satisfied. It was a year full of extremely interesting moments and tough challenges. We propose a product that is far off the idea people have of Italian bars, which is a bit commonplace. We perceive that every day, especially when a tourist crosses Taste’s threshold; here tourists feel more at home than local clients. The average Italian consumer, in fact, struggles with the idea and does not fully understand whatwe do. We have opted for a different kind of coffee roasting which we use to propose many other methods besides the espresso, and apparently Italian clients find it difficult to understand. We must constantly explain what we do over and over again, yet we enjoy doing it as the nicest thing (and I am always happy to reiterate) is that we have turned our passion into our daily work, and this is something.Therefore, even if we have to repeat the same things over and over again, client after client, we never tire and continue to endeavour to promote the coffee culture worldwide and make clients aware of what they are drinking and the ways they can taste coffee. For your coffee shop, which ranked 9th among Italy’s best coffee shops, you have chosen the Sanremo Opera. What made you to bet on this machine? We chose the Sanremo because we have known it for many years. It is a company we carry in our hearts, and first of all for the people who created it. Secondly we adore their coffee machine and I have had the opportunity of using it many times.In a way, it is as if I saw Opera being conceived while it was at the finishing stage, it was the time when I was training for my Latte Art competition in 2015. I saw many people working on that machine and the entire process impressed me tremendously. Then, in Australia, I also had the opportunity of doing my training sessions with the Opera. I operated it for quite a long time, and eventually I started familiarising with the coffee machine. And once I decided to open Taste, we had no doubts about it... we had anticipated that Opera would have been our choice. What’s it like to use it every day on a constant basis? We can do many things with it, it is a coffee machine that requires some time to attune to it. But I would like to point out that it is not a matter of difficulty, simply that you actually manage to understand the potential of the machine if you devote your time to it. Working always with different coffees enables us to play with varied extraction profiles. And obviously, as you use the machine, you can understand it in depth and get the best out of it.At Sanremo the atmosphere is really interesting, we are lucky to live near its headquarters and be able to experience the company directly and on an ongoing basis. Elisa, you have won the title of Best Barista of the Year, do you feel like giving some advice to those who wish to improve their skills and intend doing it using the Sanremo Opera? I strongly recommend all baristas to never stop training professionally and to take all opportunities, perhaps when they are on holiday or at an event, to pay a visit to the Sanremo exhibition stand. Examine the space as you were sponges, absorbing everything, because all the people that rotate around Sanremo are baristas and super professionals (both at national and international level) from whom one can learn a lot. In my opinion, this is a world where one never stops learning and every person, that you are lucky enough to meet, can give you something.

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