Very few things in life amount to the pleasure of tasting a warm quality Arabica, following an expedition in the -relatively- cold Parisian winter.

Students at the AIM Paris, Académie Internationale de Management, had this opportunity last week, thanks to our hosts Simon and Quentin at Café Coutume. The focus of our visit was to learn about specialty coffee supply chain, from producers to B2B and retail customers.

After a very instructive presentation of the storage facilities and roasting process, we were guided to the “cupping” room, where various freshly roasted beans were blind tasted. Quentin is responsible for the roasting process as well as training, he is extremely knowledgeable and students had many valuable questions for him.
Although I have been working with Café Coutume for many years now, I always learn something new each training session.
For example, did you know that decaffeinated coffee can be obtained by washing the coffee in water, thus removing most of the caffeine from the raw beans? Another way is the use of chemicals, far less appetizing in my view, but anyway I never really understood the concept of taking away caffeine from coffee 😂

Latte art session followed, hosted by Simon, who is in charge of development, and also an accomplished barrista, seeing from the fantastic shapes he is able to draw!

Looking forward to our next activity with AIM’s students, the topic will be Arts de la Table, at the Manufacture de Sèvres.

Stay tuned for more ‘round the corner adventures at BIYAHI, www.biyahi.com