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.
The recognition from UNHCR
Our continuous commitment towards our communities was acknowledged by UNHCR, UN Refugee Agency, which awarded us the "Welcome. Working for Refugee Integration" in Italy for the year 2022.
The certificate is awarded to companies that have distinguished themselves for fostering the job placement of beneficiaries of international protection and promoting an inclusive society; in our case, the A Cup of Learning project was awarded, thanks to which even today girls and boys who were part of the program continue to work in the cafés where they began their training.
In total, thanks to "Welcome. Working for Refugee Integration," nearly 9,300 refugee refugees have been placed in the labor market by 2022.
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.