Etiopia Gerse

Emanuele Bernabei and his wife Carolina Teixeira dos Santos founded Picapau Coffee Roasters in Rome in 2019, inspired by their first encounter with specialty coffee in Sao Paulo in 2013 while Emanuele was working in Brazil as an IT professional. The name Picapau is the Portuguese word for woodpecker, a nod to the Brazilian roots of their coffee awakening, and Carolina brought back formal training in sensory analysis, micro roastery management, and roasting from courses she completed in Rio de Janeiro. Before launching Picapau, Emanuele trained for more than four years at a Roman roasting company and became an SCA Authorized Trainer in 2019, managing consultancy and education alongside his competition career, which earned him second place at the Italian Coffee Roasting Championship in 2020. The micro roastery roasts three different categories of specialty coffee each week, from approachable blends designed as an entry point for newcomers through to complex single origins and rare lots that push the boundaries of what Italian specialty can offer. Picapau emphasizes direct partnerships with producers and close working relationships with the farmers behind every coffee, bringing the connection Emanuele and Carolina first felt in Brazil back to Rome's growing specialty scene.