A Cup of Learning
An espresso with the taste of the future, the one prepared by the girls and boys who participate in our free training program A Cup of Learning, dedicated to young people looking for new opportunities to work in the world of coffee.
In addition to being a training program, A Cup of Learning is a way to spread coffee culture, offering the opportunity to transform this passion into a profession.
New faces of coffee
We teach what there is to know to become all-round coffee professionals, involving girls and boys through observation and the first-person execution of the activities of a barista, or a taster. We do this by taking advantage of the experience of our trainers, who are directly involved in holding courses in coffee-producing countries or at our Training Center in Turin.
Since 2017, the year in which A Cup of Learning was born, more than 600 people have benefited from the program, acquiring the necessary skills to enter the working world in many countries, including Italy, the Dominican Republic, India, Albania, Haiti, Brazil, Cuba, Peru, Ivory Coast, Honduras, Ecuador, United Kingdom and Australia. A list that is destined to grow, and to which the United States have recently been added. In Italy, the project is the basis of “A.A.A. – Welcomes Approaches, Accompanies”. A path created together with Rete Italiana di Cultura Popolare, aimed at asylum seekers and young local people who live in one of the communities to which, historically and traditionally, we are closest: that of the Aurora district of Turin, where our company was born and raised and where our headquarter is located today.
UNHCR recognition
Our constant commitment to our communities has also been recognised by the UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, which again awarded us “Welcome. Working for Refugee Integration” status in Italy for 2024.
This is assigned to companies for outstanding achievements in fostering the employment of beneficiaries of international protection and in promoting an inclusive society. In our case, the award went to the A Cup of Learning project, thanks to which the young people who took part in the programme continue to work in the coffee bars where they began their training.
As a result of “Welcome. Working for Refugee Integration”, more than 50 thousand refugees have found jobs since the Project was launched in 2017.
The program
The program includes two different paths: one dedicated to green coffee, with a focus on the sensory analysis of coffee, processing techniques, the history of the beans, the creation of blends, and the tasting and evaluation of products according to their origin. The other is dedicated to training about the world of espresso and aims at offering the best tools for "Being a Barista": from grinding techniques to the operation of espresso machines, from pressing the ground coffee to the various extraction methods. There is a theoretical part and a very practical one, to learn how to treat the cup as a rough canvas on which to create a masterpiece with coffee, making the most of the aromas to decorate its surface.
A Coffee to Start Over: The Naples Stop
Naples is the most recent stop for A Cup of Learning. CESVI’s La Casa del Sorriso was the partner chosen in the selection of the young people who took part in the training at the Lavazza Training Center in Torre del Greco to become baristas: an opportunity for job inclusion and growth for eight young people living in fragile contexts.
The participants learned directly from our professionals the skills to turn a passion for coffee into a profession, earning a recognition diploma.
CESVI's Houses of Smiles are places where children and teenagers living in conditions of vulnerability receive care, education, and training: a safe roof where they can find hope again.