Cafezal

Overview

Cafezal is a Milanese specialty micro-roastery and café founded by Italian-Brazilian Carlos Bitencourt, whose name borrows the Portuguese word for coffee plantation and whose original Via Solferino location placed an in-room 2.5-kilo roaster at the centre of a black-marble, dark-blue and satin-copper interior. Bitencourt has expanded to three Milan locations, including a Magenta site in a 1910s building and the Cafezal Coffee Hub east of the centre, with a fourth bar and bakery on the way.

Known for

• Milan specialty micro-roastery and café founded by Italian-Brazilian Carlos Bitencourt
• In-room 2.5-kilo roaster at the original Via Solferino location
• Three Milan locations including a Magenta site in a 1910s building and Cafezal Coffee Hub east of centre
• Cupping scores published on bag for most coffees
• Arabica-forward, light-roast positioning in a city where dark-roast espresso is the default

Why it matters

Italy is the spiritual home of espresso and one of the hardest specialty markets in Europe because every Italian already considers themselves a coffee expert, with most of the country still wedded to dark, blended, sometimes-Robusta espresso. Cafezal's success in Milan — multiple locations, expanding into bakery formats, integrated into the historic-building fabric of neighbourhoods like Magenta rather than imported as a foreign-coffee-shop pastiche — is one of the cleanest examples of how Italian specialty can grow without dismissing the espresso tradition.

Production

destoning

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head roaster

Carlos Bitencourt

color sorting

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roaster machine

2.5-kilo batch capacity drum (in-room at Via Solferino)

filter equipment

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cupping frequency

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roastery location

Via Solferino 27, Milan

espresso equipment

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annual volume tonnes

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Café

Via Solferino, 27, 20121 Milan

Sources

• https://italyspecialty.coffee/lombardy/milan/cafezal
• https://appetitomagazine.com/features/the-rise-of-specialty-coffee-culture-in-milan