Blog
On November 17 and 18, the first edition of the Futura Festival was held in Rome at Officine Farneto. This innovative and contemporary project focused on emerging trends in the beverage sector, showcasing specialty coffee, kombucha, plant-based beverages, and No/Low Alcohol Drinks. These products, now gaining traction and becoming commonplace, reflect a growing cultural shift.
Accademia del Caffè Espresso and La Marzocco sponsored the event and actively participated in initiatives on multiple levels. La Marzocco Italia provided its home equipment to the micro-roasteries in attendance, while the local distributor CoffeeTechLab served Accademia’s coffee at its booth, both as espresso and nitro cold brew.
Accademia del Caffè Espresso also had a dedicated stand in partnership with Scotsman and BWT, where Marco, Nora, and Simone from the Coffee Team held tastings over two days.
They introduced the “Coffee on the Rocks” format, created with BWT and Scotsman to raise awareness about the importance of water and ice quality—not just coffee. This format had previously been tested at Accademia and the BWT showroom in Milan. Its goal was to demonstrate how to enhance the sensory experience for both home consumers and professionals.
Every day, the Accademia team offered non-stop tastings, illustrating the significance of water by preparing the same coffee with three different types of water, the impact of roasting by serving the same coffee with varying roast levels, and live roasting sessions using the IKAWA sample roaster. They also showcased the importance of different processing methods by presenting the same Pink Bourbon coffee variety in its washed, honey, natural, and anaerobic versions. Additional tastings included cascara, coffee flowers, coffee to highlight that all contain caffeine, and mixology-themed tastings featuring both alcoholic and non-alcoholic cocktails made with Signature Accademia cold brew.
The Roasters Village area hosted roasteries from both local regions and across Italy.
The event, dedicated to coffee lovers and end customers, featured experts from the coffee world and provided an opportunity to introduce Accademia del Caffè Espresso to the Roman audience. It positioned Accademia not only as a leader in high-end espresso machines but also as a source of high-quality educational content offering a 360-degree perspective on coffee.