PODcast #60 : Espresso Pods News

Welcome to The PODcast, PodMerchant's newsletter of espresso pod news, education, tips and deals. Back issues of The PODcast are available online.

Tales of the Torrefattore

Miscela d'Oro

A new installment in our Tales of the Torrefattore series, this month we highlight Sicilian roaster Miscela d'Oro, (pronounced mee-SHAY-lah-DOOR-oh). Torrefattore (tohr~ray-faht~toh-ray) is Italian for "roaster."

Since 1946, in the coastal city of Messina on the island of Sicily, the Urbano family has been roasting premium artisan espresso. For three generations, the Urbano's flavor sensibility has been influenced by the complexities of Sicilian cuisine and the subtlety of great Italian roasting tradition. Today, third generation master roaster Umberto Urbano (at right) carefully crafts Miscela d'Oro's signature flavor.

The First Generation

The Urbano family business began operating in 1946 in the Messina town center, where the company's founder Umberto, aided by his wife Emanuela, began roasting small amounts of coffee beans at an artisan level. The fundamental rule was the meticulous selection of the very best green coffee. The founder's technical knowledge and his sensitivity towards customer requirements, joined by research and experimentation with top quality blends, transformed the artisan workshop into a small family business in the middle of the 1950s. The unwavering faith of their customers, the guarantee of coffee with constant quality and the tireless search for new formulas to satisfy the demands of an evolving market enabled the company to increase sales.

The 2nd Generation

Francesco Urbano joined the business in the 1970s and the company's strategy began to focus on markets across all of Italy and the distribution channels of specialty stores and supermarkets. New product lines were created for these channels, and a blend named "5 miscele" (miscele = mixture or blend) was made, becoming the company's first big success, still remembered today, thirty years later. This was the product for which the company began its first marketing and advertising campaigns. In the 1980s it became necessary to expand and modernize the company even further, and it began to take on a more industrial tone. Higher powered systems were purchased, along with more automated storage, roasting and packing systems, but the key characteristics of a family-run, artisan business were preserved.

The 3rd Generation

At the end of the 90s, with the arrival of the third generation in the company, the commercial strategy evolved in order to successfully serve foreign markets. The company image was completely restyled, the logo was changed slightly and all the packaging was redesigned to reflect the new company strategies aimed at the foreign markets and therefore to a more demanding public. Two important new product lines were created:

• Filter coffee, conceived specially for the taste of North America and Northern Europe.
• E.S.E. espresso pods, which represent the future of the coffee market.

In 2000, the Urbano family opened a new plant equipped with cutting-edge technology and improved storage, roasting and packing capacities. The design of this new plant and the selection of its new technology proceeded with great care, so that the experience and sensitivity of three generations of coffee roasting was preserved. Into this new setting, the Urbano's have come armed with their three generations of coffee selection, blending and roasting skills. Here, they continue to achieve the aromas and flavors that have enabled the company to grow and evolve for 60 years - transforming from a small workshop to a modern artisan roasting facility which balances hand-crafting with modern consistency for the finest gourmet espresso taste.

A New Look

In 2006 the company decided that the time had come to radically change its image, entrusting this change to Oliviero Toscani, noted for his work for Benetton. The aim: That consumers all over the world can more easily understand the style and philosophy that characterize Miscela d'Oro: Quality, Elegance and Simplicity.

At left is a page from Miscela d'Oro's 2007 calendar with Toscani directed artwork using roasted whole beans, ground coffee, and espresso pods.

You can see more of Toscani's art at Miscela d'Oro's Coffee Art Exhibition at the SCAA 2008 Show, reported by Coffeegeek.com

On our PodMerchant's Map of Roasters you can view Miscela d'Oro Facilities in the coastal city of Messina on Sicily. You can zoom right in and see the actual building.

Miscela d'Oro Espresso Singles are featured in The Balanced Cup and Top Sellers categories.

PodMerchant News

Running Low on Lucaffe, Amigos, del Doge, et. al.

It's been a long, slow summer. Summer is always slow in the coffee business, but with the recession... this one's been glacially slow. One ramification is that there was no need (or money) to place our orders from Italy at the regularly scheduled time. And it takes approximately 3 months from order to delivery. So we will not be restocking products from Lucaffe, Amigos, Caffe' del Doge, and Compagnia dell'Arabica until mid January, and I do expect to run out before that time.

I mention this as a "heads up" to our regular customers of those brands. You may wish to soon order enough to hold you until the middle of January. I'd prefer that our loyal customers get their favorite brand than sell it to Christmas shoppers.

Lavazza Cups Marked Down

We've reduced the prices of Lavazza brand cups by $2 each. Cups make a nice Christmas gifts, no?

The Pod Blog R.I.P.

Oh, dear. Mere hours after I had released PODcast Issue 59, which announced our blog about espresso pods, Google (who owns blogspot.com) shut the blog down for violation of terms. It seems there was too high of a percentage of links back to www.podmerchant.com, and they don't like that. I'm still trying to decide if I should bring it back to life on another blog hosting site.

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Keep on brew'n...


Kevin Garrett, The PodMerchant.