This is me

I am Edoardo Quarta, together with my brother Gaetano, we represent the fourth generation of roasters of the family business Quarta Caffè S.p.a. of Lecce.


Since I was a child I have breathed the flavours of coffee, soon learning to distinguish the different aromas and scents.


My real passion, however, was cooking; I liked messing up different ingredients together and observing, surprised, the result of my game, which like all children I perceived as a job.
Growing up the passion has never faded, on the contrary, I have followed with increasing interest the work of the most renowned and innovative chefs.
As a teenager I started working in prestigious restaurants in Italy and abroad, but at a certain point I felt a strong call to my origins.I returned to my hometown to work at the family business where I rediscovered the universe of aromas of various types of coffee and I transferred the rigor, secrets, laws, experience and standards acquired in the kitchen to the familiar world of coffee.

I have visited several producing countries: El Salvador, Puerto Rico, Honduras, Guatemala, Uganda, staying in the farms to learn all the phases of that chain that starts from a plant and ends in a cup.

My interest grew more and more and I felt the need to better understand this wonderful world. I began to deal with the best professionals in the field who gave me what would become the guidelines of my training.


I thus obtained the double qualification of "Q-grader" for the Arabica and Robusta species, recognized by the Coffee Quality Institute.
With the "Q-Grader", a highly specialized course on coffee quality, I studied in depth topics such as: the classification of coffee, roasting, analysis and tasting, but also knowledge of the 22 areas of production, the classification of green coffee, identification of the type of roasting, tasting.
In 2014 my brand "Edo Quarta Coffee Roasters" was born and since then I have been dealing with the selection of single origin specialty coffees.

But what is meant by single origin specialty coffee?


Single origin coffees, unlike common blends, come exclusively from a single geographical area and drinking them in purity allows you to find in the cup the unique and particular characteristics of each land of origin, it works a bit like in the world of wine, where there are the CRU, wines from vineyards in a specific and delineated area, with particularly valuable organoleptic characteristics.
In fact, the world of coffee is very similar to that of wine.

The term "specialty", on the other hand, was coined for the first time in America by Erna Knusten (1998-2018), one of the first women roasters who outlined the parameters of quality coffee.
Erna's basic idea was that some places and geographical climates produce beans with unmistakable perfumes and tastes; however, these precious beans had to be well selected and processed, toasted and extracted with art to respect and enhance their unique qualities.
Even today, for the S.C.A. (Specialty Coffee Association), the parameters of Knusten are the reference standards and she is considered the godmother of specialty coffees.

In 2016, after a long, intense and exciting preparation, the first great professional satisfaction arrived: together with the team formed by Angelo Segoni and Vito Spagnolo, we won the Italian Barista Championship.
Alone, I wanted to try my hand at the competition and in 2018 I took part in the Italian Roasting Championship reaching a more than gratifying third place.

Here I am. This is my world, this is my business; after intercepting the best coffees on the world market, together with my staff we analyze and classify in the laboratory "Research and Development" of the Company Quarta Caffè the different samples and then choose the best, "cuddle" them with a doc roasting that enhances all the organoleptic characteristics and present them to those who are undertaking or have already undertaken this wonderful journey in the world of specialty.
And I observe surprised the result of my work that, like all adults in love with what they do, sometimes I perceive as a game.
With "Edo Specialty Coffee", whose motto is "tradition meets progress", I intend to offer refined and precious products, with strong, original and noble features.

To satisfy noses and demanding palates.
Even more than mine.



VIAGGI DI RICERCA

BRASILE
COSTA RICA
NEW YORK
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