TRIESTE – There is a new blend, Il Mingardi S, named after Severino Mingardi, founder of Amigos Caffè. It is an exquisite reserve coffee which celebrates a true passion for coffee started in 1980.
Il Mingardi S was revealed in Trieste and it will be officially introduced at TriestEspresso Expo 2016, Halle 20 stand 30-42. But over 200 guests had the opportunity to discover the still unreleased blend, the result of intuition and research carried out by Arianna Mingardi and her husband Claudio Pribetic.
Il Mingardi S will write a new chapter in the history of Trieste’s roasting company located in Muggia, in Strada delle Saline, and it is the fulfilment of Severino Mingardi’s dream. Indeed, for a long time the roaster from Brescia had been dreaming of adding an original blend of coffee to the traditional “Amigos recipes”. This blend would have an Italian brand and it would be able to convey the taste of a true made in Italy Espresso. “Yes, we’ll do it eventually”, Severino used to say. But the project had not come to life for different reasons, and had stayed among him and his family. After Severino’s untimely and sudden departure, in October 2014, the new generation was left with the desire to fulfil his dream.
At the end of 2015, Arianna Mingardi started to work on the project, creating a name and an image for the new product. Soon the logo for Il Mingardi S was born. It is an abstract and symbolic logo: it is a letter, a graphic sign, and even a coffee cup. The coffee blend was created by three parties, as Amigos Caffè involved the espresso expert Edy Bieker from Sandalj Trading Company, who was recently honoured with a lifetime achievement award in the field of speciality coffees by the SCAE international association (Speciality Coffee Association of Europe).
The challenge that Arianna Mingardi presented to Edy Bieker was particularly ambitious: brewing different kinds of exquisite coffees which, in a cup, would remind of Severino Mingardi. «Tasting Il Mingardi S should recall the emotions related to the colour blue, his favourite in any occasion». It is an intense night blue which should evoke the image of a starry and silent night sky, and it translates into calm, peace and satisfaction. To Edy Bieker, who knew Severino Mingardi well, the link between the colour blue and Severino’s personality is clear: «he was humble, hard working, always ready to get down to business. He was an optimist, a man of few words but always strong and profound».
Upon these reflections, Arianna and Claudio, in collaboration with Sandalj’s team, select different kinds of high quality coffee which, united in a blend, could emanate precise organoleptic characteristics: its richness and its low sourness, mitigated by pleasant sweet aromas. The research lasted for several months, with the alternation of checking and refining stages. It consisted in comparing different samples to reach a solution, the right shade of blue.
The reserve coffee achieved is then submitted to a hundred people for a blind test. «By tasting the coffee, everyone experienced a feeling of harmony and balance and, in the lengthy and pleasant aftertaste, the evasion that only a dream can offer», Arianna Mingardi says. The result is an espresso which releases intense tastes of cocoa, brittle and dried fruit followed by the captivating taste of orange marmalade. Even the aftertaste, intense and enduring, gains hints of almond with a touch of citrus honey to enrich the tasting experience.
During the preview night the packaging of the new product was revealed as well. It matches the refinement of Il Mingardi S’ logo and the intense shade of blue. The package of the new product signed Amigos Caffè shows the stylised image of the most beautiful square in Trieste, piazza Unità d’Italia, and the blowing of the typical north-eastern Italian wind, “Bora”. On the package, a delicate drawing of Severino Mingardi’s face, and a poem written for him by his daughter Arianna.
The company
Amigos Caffè’s history (www.amigoscaffe.com) starts in 1980 in a little 40sqm warehouse in the outskirts of Trieste. Severino Mingardi, native of Brescia, and his wife Maria Sincovich bought an old 30kg toaster and a manual packaging machine. The “sombrero hat grain” was born shortly thereafter. Year after year, their activity grew and its location changed twice until, between 1999 and 2005, the company moved in a 11,000 sqm area. 5,000 sqm were used for production and storage. Today the roasting company is led by Arianna Mingardi and the other members of her family; it has 15 employees and produces a line of 10 coffee blends. It works on behalf of third parties and has a productivity of 1,600 kg/h. Amigos Caffè, internationally renowned, can be found from Greece to Russia, from central to northern Europe.
