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OUR STORY

With a name like Francesca Fargnoli, my heritage is no secret! Passion for food and love of all things Italian is what inspired Basil & Vine Café. The Fargnoli family come from a very picturesque part of Italy between Rome and Naples called St Andrea, a village set in the rolling ‘valley of the saints’. Life for my grandparents and forebears was very simple and rustic. It is quite near to Mt Vesuvius where the volcanic soil makes the vegetables and tomatoes the best tasting in the world. Food is central to our Italian way of life and large family meals are customary in our household. Meals are relaxed affairs enjoying each other’s company and the sense of community. Traditionally Italian dishes are made with simple ingredients that can be made or procured inexpensively such as pasta, bread, cheese, olive oil and tomatoes. Italian cuisine is all about using quality ingredients well and not so much about fancy cooking techniques. Basil & Vine’s goal is to capture that sense of relaxed dining and extended family that Italians do so well– where eating is a family affair that involves talking, socialising and loads of food made with quality, wholesome ingredients.

OUR SPECIALTY COFFEE

Our delicious specialty coffee is supplied by local roasters located in north Brisbane. They have been blending and roasting their coffee for years and source their beans for the house blend from cooperatives in Rwanda, Guatemala and Colombia.

The Rwandan beans come from a co-op in the town of Musasa which is located around 2000 metres above sea level and 70km from Kigali, the capital of Rwanda. Most of these small-scale producers own less than a quarter of a hectare of land, where they cultivate an average of 275 coffee trees each. The Musasa Dukunde Kawa co-op gives these small farmers the chance to combine and process their cherries centrally.

The Guatemalan beans come from the South-Western region of Guatemala which is one of the best regions for coffee cultivation in the country. It is a dry region protected from frost by the warm air currents that sweep eastward from Mexico's Tehuantepec region. The high elevations of the mountain range (the tallest non-volcanic group in Central America) allow the coffees to develop the distinctive flavour characteristics for which they are renowned. The SHB grading indicates that these and then dries the wet parchment on patios next to their houses. Much of the harvesting in this area is done by hand; a slow, practiced method that nonetheless allows for greater control over the quality and consistency of the product.

The Columbian beans are supplied by the Cristalina group which represents 158 small farms in this micro region of Colombia’s coffee belt. Many of these farms are only a few hectares in size, meaning that they only produce small amounts of coffee. Each farm has its own wet mill, to process and drying its own fruit, but lacks the resources to dry mill, or export their own product. For this, the Cristalina group relies on Granja La Esperanza, a coffee growing and exporting group based out of Cali. The Cristalina organization is structured around democratic principles, with each member farm getting a say in group policy.