Armenian Alumni & Friends Hold Starbucks Coffee Tasting at Smittcamp Alumni House

Zhanna Bagdasarov
EDITOR

AAF President Arakel Arisian, left, with Starbucks manager David Gejeian

The Armenian Alumni and Friends (AAF) chapter of the Fresno State Alumni Association hosted its third event since its creation in fall of 2006. As membership continues to grow, the AAF is encouraged to increase the number of events, which allow new and old alumni to reconnect. This goal was accomplished at the most recent Coffee Tasting conducted by Starbucks Coffee at the Smittcamp Alumni House library on March 19.

AAF President Arakel Arisian welcomed the guests, and introduced David Gejeian and Fr. Russell from Starbucks Coffee Company, who provided a thorough explanation of the origins of coffee, the creation of the Starbucks Company, and circulated samples of three types of roasts. Each attending AAF member was able to taste the Columbia, Kenya, and Sumatra roasts and learn about the differences between them.

Fr. Russell of Starbucks explaining some of the different processes used in preparing Starbucks coffee.

The Columbia and the Kenya coffees are wet-processed, which means that the acidity is higher and thus the taste is strong and bitter. The Sumatra roast is dry processed with the lowest acidity in the world. This type of coffee was distributed along with a sample of dark chocolate, which was said to complement and bring-out the taste.

While the coffee made its rounds, the Starbucks spokespeople provided the audience with a bit of history on the creation of the company. The Starbucks Corporation was named after a character in the novel Moby Dick and is currently the largest coffeehouse company in the world. After Howard Schultz purchased the original Starbucks in 1987 he created 17 stores, which eventually expanded to over 5,647 licensed stores in 39 countries. A company that was originally based in the United States, now has one third of its stores overseas.

The Coffee Tasting closed with an answer to a question most attendees wanted to know, "What is the best way to make Armenian coffee?" To this question the Starbucks representatives replied, "Blend espresso beans with breakfast blend by grinding both types and mixing them together before making the coffee."