The world has changed! And the reasons for the change do not just concern this year’s pandemic. No, things have been changing – and probably in an even clearer way– for several years now. Today, more attention is being paid to the environmental sustainability surrounding food production, and this has led to a revolution in the choices coffee drinkers are making: people are becoming increasingly aware of what they are consuming, and coffee is no exception. Coffee drinkers want to know where the beans come from, who farmed them, who roasted the beans and what method was used for that.

The processing of coffee is coming increasingly into the spotlight, and famers are introducing new methods.

“I look very carefully at the experimental work being done, at new processing techniques and generally at all aspects of coffee production,” says Carmen Clemente, who was crowned Latte Art champion at its 2020 edition. “I can say that, as someone who thinks a lot about the future, there is I think still a lot to discover about coffee beans.”

New methods include anaerobic fermentation, carbonic maceration, natural X.O., and lactic acid fermentation...

“All fermentation and carbonic maceration processes are experimental procedures introduced in recent years to make specialty coffees, and carried out in the plantations themselves,” explains Luigi Lupi, a leading expert in the field and one of the world’s foremost exponents of Latte Art. “They are systems borrowed from wine and beer making. It is important to point out, however, that not all coffee producers can engage in this kind of fermentation because it requires a lot of expensive equipment, and entails an elaborate and complex preparation process that few are able to carry out at the moment. It is necessary to take account of many parameters, without which the whole process will fail to produce good results. However, this kind of fermentation process is catching on more and more, although demand in Italy for it is still very limited.”

Stefano Cevenini, the world Italian Espresso Champion in 2019, goes further, hinting at another process used to process coffee beans: “I am very familiar with anaerobic fermentation and I can guarantee that – if done to a high enough standard – the resulting cup of coffee has an interesting and quite particular flavour, depending on the single-origin coffee used.”

But controlled fermentation is a very strong trend, and we will be hearing a lot more about it in future. World Latte Art champion Chiara Bergonzi, now considered a leading expert on coffee, agrees: “Producers are looking for sensorial profiles that are a bit more special than was previously the case; there is a growing interest in specialty coffee and a more conscious approach to drinking, with more attention to sustainability and to more controlled production chains that provide guarantees. There are also new ways of processing beans, such as so-called X.O. this is still a little-used method in Italy, but various experts around the world have been experimenting with the method. It is a natural process that creates intense flavours reminiscent of Cognac X.O. Basically, fermentation takes place (cold, and for 48 hours), in a process that is little known in Italy, in the kinds of receptacles in which Cognac X.O is aged. A delicate process and one that is already arousing a good deal of curiosity among producers.”