Pino Fumarola, the founder of Caffè Morola, isn’t an actor endorsing a product, he’s an expert.

Pino is from Martina Franca in Taranto. He’s married to Maria Teresa and has two children, Elisa and Luca. Up until 2009, he’d worked in a completely different area – in Hi-Fi (he was three-times winner of the Italian car Hi-Fi installation championship!), then he discovered his passion for coffee.

“It was only after a complete career change that my passion for coffee really kicked in. To start with, I didn’t have any subject knowledge whatsoever, so I had to start from the very beginning. I read everything and anything I could and took a course with the International Institute of Coffee Tasters, inspired when I saw that one of Italy’s key figures in sensory analysis (Prof. Luigi Odello) was on the teaching staff.”

Now Pino is a sensory analysis expert himself as well as an Italian Espresso Trainer.

Pino is constantly updating his skills: with *AICAF, and *IIAC, by becoming a “Roasting Professional” at the *SCAE, by studying with one of the most highly qualified teachers in Italy and in Europe (Dr. Marco Cremonesi), and through lots of experience selecting coffees directly in their country of origin.

* AICAF (Accademia Italiana Maestri del Caffè – the Italian Academy of Coffee Masters).

* SCAE -Specialty Coffee Association of Europe. The *SCA is the most important of all the associations and it represents coffee professionals and promotes coffee at a European and worldwide level.

“I’ve reached professional status (I’m an SCA licence holder n. 1111) in Roasting skills and Sensory skills and I’m studying for a professional qualification in selecting Green Coffee. All the reading and studying I’ve done has really brought home to me what a worldwide phenomenon coffee really is.

UMAMI area and more:
Morola is a partner in Umami Area Honduras, a Honduran association for the food and beverage sector, dedicated to high quality professional training and with a keen focus on social and environmental responsibility.
Pino is also involved in the Finca Rio Colorado eco-sustainability project in Las Capucas in Honduras. He travels frequently to the region to follow the progress of the harvest and to train farm workers.
The ongoing Morola for Friends project finances training opportunities for local workers and the children of the farmers.

Right at the start of his training, Pino found himself working with one of the best roasting machines on the market – the Probat, which really helped him understand the process.

As he explained to his now friend, Marco Cremonesi, on receiving his qualification, Pino realised he didn’t need to buy a roasting machine. He needed to become an expert in the production process: fully understanding curves and roasting, tasting and knowing what the end product looks like in the cup. Then he would be able to target the owners of the machines that produce the very best coffee.

Pino set up a training room at Morola to provide baristas with courses on how to obtain excellent results.
He is a trainer himself, but he prefers to call in external professionals so that the courses are always up to the minute and using the latest techniques.

“Whenever I run introductory courses, I like to take a technical/practical approach so trainees can understand why a speciality coffee, produced with passion is so much better than the commercial mass produced variety.

After one course, I received a message from a trainee thanking me for the enormous amount he had learnt but jokingly reprimanding me for doing him a disservice. Previously, he hadn’t quite appreciated the true taste of coffee and now every coffee he tasted just seemed inadequate…Obviously, there are good coffees around, but you need to seek them out.”

Pino never tires of learning. He went to Indonesia to do the Sensory Skill Professional Certificate and become a Trainer. “There were only two of us on the course and three trainers! The assessment task was to deliver an intermediate course to a class of trainees. It was a fantastic experience.”