Francesco Sanapo, owner of micro-roastery Ditta Artigianale, has started his “coffee bike tour” which will see him travel from Florence to the Specchia village.
The tour is designed to raise awareness on climate change and will see Sanapo talk with different businesses and industry players at each leg of the tour.
At every stop, each actor or business will be greeted with a Ditta Artigianale specialty coffee, prepared by Sanapo, using his own French Press.
“It’s a challenge with myself, I want to recount specialty coffee in squares and places where it is not so present by combining my two biggest passions, coffee and bikes”, says Sanapo, who is self-confessed coffee lover, multi-awarded barista champion, and coffee taster.
The Italian Coffee Tour will be sponsored by Confcommercio Firenze, Fipe (The Italian Federation of Public Enterprises Adhering to Confcommercio) Pissei, Hario, and Rolling Dreamers. According to Sanapo, the Rolling Dreamers prepared Sanapo mentally and physically for the journey.
Ditta Artigianale says that many scientists believe that in around 30 years coffee could disappear from the face of the earth due to climate change.
To raise awareness, Sanapo departed at 6am on the 4 of August from the piazza Sant’Ambrogio in Florence, where he recently opened the new Ditta Artigianale Carducci & Hario Cafè.
Sanapo’s first stop was in Arezzo in Caffè dei Costanti, San Francesco square. His first guest was Francesco Marinoni, general manager of Confcommercio Toscana.
From there, Sanapo travelled to Anghiari and traversed Valtiberina before crossing the border into Umbria in the late afternoon. He spent the night in Città di Castello where he met with major Luciano Bacchetta and several others.
Today, Sanapo will continue to bike to the Marche region, stopping in Ancona where he will meet Civitanova, San Benedetto del Tronto, and Cosimo Libardo, member of the Specialty Coffee Association board.
Finally, he will travel down the Adriatic coast to Abruzzo to Giulianova and Pescara before finally reaching Apulia. He will also stop at Bari, Ostuni and Lecce, before ending the tour at his home village of Specchia.
“We are facing the possibility of losing the pleasure of a cup of coffee, one of the most traditional and consolidated habits of our Italy,” says Sanapo. “Sadly, due to global warming, the ozone hole, the destruction of forests and the honeybee blight, before 2050 the lands where these precious beans are cultivated may no longer bear fruit.
“For this reason, I decided to do something real and concrete by combining my two big passions, coffee and bikes, for a thousand kilometres trip that will take me around six Italian regions to speak about coffee and climate change, firmly believing that each and every one of us can make a difference starting from small daily acts done in new, ecological and sustainable ways.”
