He recognises himself well in Aurélien’s incipit, Aragon’s novel: “The first time Aurélien saw Bérénice, he found her frankly ugly”. He had in his mouth only fermenting, burnt, rubbery aromas, alcohol volatiles as in wine, fragrances reminiscent of hydrocarbons. It must be said that the man has a delicate palate. He is the heir of a line of art cutlers and has been a food critic, tasting trainer and winemaker’s agent. In other words, for him, eating is an act of civilization. In another life, he also taught medieval history and then general history, but in Italian.
A specialist in the Middle Ages, he sees the world only as a continuum, the past nourishing the present, the present bearing the seeds of the future. A book devourer, he approached coffee with the same thirst to exhaust the subject, hoping above all never to succeed. But first he had to overcome his disgust. This was done by the grace of a cup filled with a plantation coffee from Guatemala, a Pulcal, Caturra Arabica from the Fraijanes region, a high-altitude volcanic area. A new world was opening up to him, which he has not stopped exploring ever since.
When in 2009, L’Arbre à Café was born in Paris, it immediately took part in a movement that began on the West Coast of the United States in the 1990s, and in Australia and the Scandinavian countries at the dawn of the new millennium. This movement was slow to find a foothold in France, and was strongly influenced by Anglo-Saxon identities.
L’Arbre à Café was then a pioneer in France because the brand was dedicated solely to specialty coffees, the cream of the genre.
Better still, it has established itself in the world as a scout because, inspired by the great wines of Burgundy and Alsace, it only works with mono-varietal, mono-fermented coffees, bought directly from the producers, and grown mainly in bio-dynamics.
But above all, far from sticking to a global trend of magnifying acidity, milky and aromatic intensity, L’Arbre à Café develops a French taste, a New French Art of Coffee based on balance and complexity, just like great wines and great dishes. The company roasts its own coffees, using the latest technical advances and the most advanced craftsmanship. The aim is to reveal the organoleptic singularities of each of the coffees, and not to be carried along by a current.
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