Bloom Specialty Coffee

Alberto Polojac grew up around coffee before he ever roasted a bag of it himself, his grandfather founded Imperator, a green coffee import business now run by a third generation of the family, but Alberto built something separate: more than twenty years working supply chains across Africa and Latin America, a Cup of Excellence judgeship, the 2009 Italian Cup Tasting Championship, and in 2010 the first Q Grader certification ever awarded in Italy. He now coordinates the Specialty Coffee Association's work in Italy and directs his own Bloom Coffee School alongside it.

Bloom Specialty Coffee grew out of that school as a place to work with beans too good for Imperator's existing commercial accounts, four roasting machines ranging from a 250 gram sample roaster to a 7 kilogram production model, air assisted, gas powered, and direct flame among them, run more like a small winery than a cafe. Customers can choose a roast level and taste what they bought on the spot, a tailor made approach rarely seen in Italy before Bloom opened here.