Ciolino with his Diedrich I-5 coffee roasting machine.
This article was submitted by Benjamin Shanbrom.
For many of us, coffee is a given — it’s there in the morning or late nights when we need it, and there isn’t much else to consider. It’s quite rare that we actually sit and ponder the incredible journey these little beans voyage through to make it to our cups.
New Haven coffee roaster Eric Ciolino of One World Roasters, is bringing his “mountain to cup” knowledge to the Yale community and the public in a lively tasting and information session on Jan. 17. The event, to be held at Yale’s Marsh Botanical Garden, will be followed by a greenhouse tour.
“For me it’s about bringing the story of coffee to the people,” said Ciolino, who has also served as Yale’s master gardener for 28 years. “I have so much respect for Yale, working here, and the collection that they have is amazing — what better place to taste the coffee and see the plant than here?” While he plans to explore the coffee plant’s life cycle in greater detail at the tasting, the local roaster offered a glimpse into the fascinating process.
“It starts as a sapling,” Ciolino said. “It’s usually five to seven years before it produces the cherries we use, and maybe ten years before you can harvest them.” You read that correctly — coffee as we know it is technically stone fruit, related to peaches and typical cherries. “The cherries are very sweet, but there isn’t much to them,” he added.
This lengthy growth and harvesting process is tremendously important and varies greatly based on the coffee type. We hear terms like Arabica and Robusta thrown around, but what’s the difference? “Arabica coffee is overall a superior plant,” Ciolino said. “It’s grown at a much higher elevation, needs better soil, better conditions, and a longer growth period — that’s why the coffee tastes more flavorful. The sugars develop further and the more complex flavors come out.” While Ciolino admitted that both coffees, with their distinct growth processes, have their place, One World only deals with Arabica beans.
Following the harvesting phase, the drying and roasting stages allow the coffees to take on other distinguishing characteristics. “Is it on a patio, is it canopy dried, is the mucilage dried on the bean, or is it taken off and dried that way? It makes a huge difference to the taste,” Ciolino added.
Eric Larson, manager of Marsh Botanical Garden, also weighed in on the nuances and preferences of roasting, which, depending on duration, can make one coffee taste entirely different from cup to cup. “Being humans, we’re creatures of habit — ‘this is how I make it, this is how I like it’ — but, if somebody gave you a nice short-pull espresso and you taste the sugars in the coffee bean, the natural sweetness, then you start to think, ‘there’s another way!’”
Larson’s words express a zealous fervor for the coffee craft and a desire to share, which is at the root of the mission statement at Marsh Botanical Garden, which also serves as a lab area to Yale students.
“We grow these plants for students to study. It’s one thing to hear a lecture, see a slide about a plant, but when you come here dissecting flowers, and the nectaries are producing great aromas — it’s a whole different ball game. And at the end of class when you eat something relating to the plants that you have studied, it’s engaging all of your senses in learning,” Larson said.
Beyond just taste and preference, the Erics hope to also impart a greater knowledge of the importance of organic, especially as far as coffee is concerned. “We put this stuff in our mouths — in our bodies, and we can’t take any of that lightly,” Larson said. Not only that, but the average coffee drinker in the United States is reported to have three cups per day.
When it comes to organic, One World Roasters walks the walk, venturing to a number of coffee producing countries and establishing relationships with organic growers. “We’ve been to the Dominican Republic, Costa Rica, Peru, and Ecuador. For the last ten years most of my vacations have been in coffee producing regions to broaden my own knowledge and see what the producers go through,” Ciolino said.
In February 2014 Ciolino and Christine Ucich, also from One World Roasters, spent a week volunteering at Spirit Mountain, an organic coffee farm in the Dominican Republic. Spirit Mountain is not only certified organic, but also one of very few coffee growers that has received a “bird-friendly” certification from the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center, indicating extreme care and consideration given to not disrupting natural coffee growing habitats.
This same coffee, One World’s Dominican Roast, is imported through a direct trade relationship with the farm and will be sampled at the tasting. “The Dominican has a slightly salty island flavor — some caramel and chocolate notes, and is very smooth,” Ciolino said.
The duo immersed themselves in the local culture and the “coffee as a way of life” mentality present in the area.” “We were staying in the village which was down at the foot of the mountain so we got to know the villagers — nobody spoke English and we didn’t speak Spanish but somehow we communicated and got along well,” Ucich said. “We also visited the school that uses the proceeds of this coffee farm to give kids scholarships.”
In line with the community-geared sensibility many of these coffee farms have, the Marsh Garden tasting holds a similar significance according to Larson. “Yale tries to be a good neighbor to New Haven, so it’s part of that effort to give back to the community, and that’s why we make our facilities available for things like this,” he said. “We have the coffee plants here, we have an event space that’s just the right size for an event like this, and Eric and I are friends. All of that is a perfect storm of a relationship.”
The coffee tasting and discussion will start at 2 pm on Jan. 17 at the Marsh Botanical Garden, followed by a greenhouse tour at 4. To learn more about One World Roasters and this event visit oneworldroasters.com and marshbotanicalgarden.yale.edu.
