義大利國寶級咖啡:Illy
http://es.illy.com/inprincipio/en/Progetto/
This project marks the beginning of the collaboration between Sebastião Salgado and illy, and serves to narrate and enhance the life and story of the green coffee growers. It is an expressive black and white tribute to celebrate the customary and ritual gestures, the plantations and the history and culture of coffee from the countries which give origin to our daily beverage. It is a backward photographic journey, a tale about how coffee is harvested, dried and selected bean by bean. It is also a tale of men, stories, landscapes and harmony.
Fifteen years ago illy set up the Prêmio Brasil de Qualidade do Café para Espresso. The company directly contacts growers who present the best sample of their produce. In addition to being awarded a cash prize, the winners also join the list of growers whose crops are purchased by illy at a higher than market price. The award represents a recognition for those who receive it and acts as a strong stimulus throughout the sector. The number of participants has grown every year, as has crop quality. And increasing areas of land have been reconverted to the cultivation of coffee, to respect biodiversity. The award began in Brazil, the leading world coffee producing country, and has spread to other countries such as Colombia, India and Guatemala, where better quality coffee means higher incomes and improved standards of living for local growers.
illy is not only committed to crop quality but also to the growers’ quality of life. By purchasing directly at source, at higher than market prices, illy guarantees growers a higher income and it transfers know-how and technology to ensure a steady improvement in quality and environmental protection. This purchasing system has proved to offer important economic spin-offs especially in Brazil, India and Ethiopia. An increasing number of growers have been given incentives to grow the best varieties of Arabica, and to process the harvest in such a way as to safeguard its quality. This is one way illy contributes to sustainable development, and its contribution is growing day by day, as is its love for coffee.
Fifty coffee beans are what it takes to make an excellent cup of espresso. Fifty perfect coffee beans, that is, for it only takes one flawed bean to make an unpalatable cup. This is why illy runs quality checks at source on the coffee to be purchased, followed by checks on the final blend, by means of 114 quality checks and controls which the coffee undergoes upon its arrival in Trieste, right up to its consumption. One of the most important is the electronic selection, which uses high-tech machinery to examine over five thousand beans a second and to remove the flawed ones. But no high-tech inspection can match the most sophisticated instruments of all, namely the noses and taste buds of illy’s coffee tasters who, as expert sommeliers, can guarantee the unique blend both continuity and harmony.
