Everyone knows what a wine taster is but a lesser-known profession is the coffee taster, officially called probador or classificador in Brazil, or coffee cuppers. One of these is your writer, here pictured in a photo “stolen” in a RAI Television studio in Rome, during a break in a live broadcast about coffee.

Trieste handles a third of all the coffee imported to Italy. It comes from the Americas, from Asia and Africa, and via Trieste it reaches its final destination, going to coffee roasters across Italy and beyond.

What does a coffee taster actually do? It’s an unusual profession and not particularly simple. It would be heaven for any caffeine addict; in fact it consists in “drinking coffee from morn till night!”. Leaving aside the addicts’ facile quips and their jealousy, coffee tasters are envied and very… nervous, if only for the massive amount of caffeine.

The purpose of technical tasting is to judge the quality of the coffee, which must be in line with set standards. Our other role is to prepare coffee blends.

Trieste’s particular role in the coffee world has led to the creation of a Coffee Museum, but more of that next time. There’s this, too, in Trieste!

Your professional coffee taster.