torrefazione

{wake up and smell the caffé}

On the walking tours I lead of Rome's sweet and savory pleasures, the two coffee shrines Caffé Sant'Eustacchio and Tazza d'Oro are always on my itinerary. Not so much for their equally excellent espresso blends–which everyone enjoys, of course–but rather for the chance to witness first hand their coffee roasting procedure. 

You can smell it half a mile away. When a torrefazione (coffee roaster) is at work, you can't miss it.

So we walked in and I winked at the man behind the cash register. He smiled back and nodded, which is code for, 'yes go ahead.'

Behind the busy counter, in a small room in back, we found an elf-like gentleman busy at work; he was scooping shovelfuls of first crack beans* (which are a grayish shade of beige) in the rotating wood log-burning drum I photographed. As we saw the drum slowly turn and release the coffee's insanely good aroma, my group learned that each coffee is separately roasted, and later combined together in a percentage purposely studied to create the blend. 

When the elf saw fit, he scooped the batch of roasted beans out, weighing them in jute sacks. And then with fresh beans, started all over again, tirelessly.

We furtively returned to the front, and enjoyed our proverbially frothy espresso pretending we weren't in the know.

*For a description of the full coffee bean roasting cycle, Click here and scroll down to point 5.4