At the end of last summer, while walking through Vodnjan, we spotted a big red house with a sign Bora Nera Specialty Coffee. Slightly confused, we stepped into a spacious, uncut, wildly charming garden with just a few chairs and tables scattered around. We sat down, met the owners, and were delighted. This is their story.
Matteo Cardin and Erika Forlani Cardin are a couple like no other. Their love is a blend of travel, curiosity, and passion for coffee. Erika, from Vodnjan, an art historian and restorer, spent many years in Italy, while Matteo, from Italy, is a photographer, artist, and researcher who studied photography at university in Melbourne. Together, they lived in Australia for two full years, traveled through Asia, slept in jungles, learned and got to know coffee in Laos.
Their first encounter with real coffee happened completely by chance, in Laos, a former French colony where the first arabica plantations were planted long ago. Matteo, who intended to pursue photojournalism, saw an opportunity for an excellent report on how coffee is harvested and processed. The following year, they returned to Laos, this time deeper into the jungle, where they spent days with a local family on plantations that were literally in the middle of nowhere. There, they saw what real life with coffee looks like. The local family they stayed with didn‘t speak a word of English, and Matteo and Erika learned how to say in Lao that they don‘t eat meat. Five days, or more, they spent with them, sleeping in the jungle, eating whatever the family found. What especially fascinated them were the women who harvested the coffee. The men hunted with slingshots, but the women were the ones who would pull down the branches of tall coffee trees - because these weren‘t five-meter bushes, but real trees 10-15 meters high, typical for robusta, which grows taller than arabica. The women picked coffee by hand, showed them how to dry it, how to process it, even how to roast it in a wok.
That smell, that feeling, that realization – all of it got under their skin and never left. When Erika felt the call of home and wanted to return from distant Australia to Vodnjan, Matteo followed her romantically, not wanting to return to Italy. And then they had that click, a moment of enlightenment. Matteo, with a friend, entered Rovinj’s Cogito for the first time, which unfortunately didn‘t survive the pandemic, and tasted specialty coffee. Erika still remembers with a smile how he came home, eyes shining with excitement, almost bouncing with happiness.
With that same friend, a professional barista, Matteo began to weave dreams of his own micro-roastery. Erika at first wasn‘t supposed to be part of that equation; she had her established routine, a job at school, guiding tourists, translating... this would be a fourth track. But the friend, due to sweet worries about getting married, a new baby, and building a house, withdrew. Matteo was, to put it mildly, devastated. "I saw him, he was completely into it," Erika says. He told her, honestly and a bit desperately: "But I can‘t do this alone. Either you help me or I won‘t do anything." And Erika, guided by instinct and love, agreed. She stepped with him into that fragrant adventure, leaving the safety of the school desks behind.
That was in 2019, before the pandemic. During those years, Matteo began serious education – certificates in Trieste, schools, fairs in Rimini with espresso machines. Then they looked for a business space for a café, but couldn‘t find one. The espresso machine was already ordered, there was no turning back. They were told they could work from home because they only needed one room that had to be set up properly. When they finally had all the paperwork and everything ready, all the cafés closed.
Still, those two years of forced silence, looking back, maybe brought them something good. For Matteo, it was precious time to immerse himself in the alchemy of coffee roasting, to experiment and learn. And when the pandemic finally eased, people, drawn by the smell and curiosity, started knocking on their door. "Can we have coffee at your place, since you have such a wonderful garden?" they asked. At first, the idea didn‘t seem the most practical. What about winter? Their home is, after all, just their home. But as the sun grew warmer and the garden greener, the picture became clearer: why not? That wild, untamed garden of theirs could become a stage for the most beautiful coffee moments. They started with tastings, then with education through the Community College, engaging a professional barista. One course, then another, a bit longer. And they realized – Istria is thirsty for knowledge, thirsty for different coffee, both curious individuals and professionals seeking quality.
A few months ago, Erika was in Costa Rica. She visited plantations, met farmers, specifically Don Alexis, with whom they now have direct cooperation. Don Alexis and his family send them green beans which they roast in Vodnjan – fresh, fragrant, alive. It‘s not just business, it‘s friendship. "We love to know who our coffee comes from, who picked it, how it was processed. That gives everything meaning."
Their coffee doesn‘t stay just within the walls of their red house. Today, the aromas of Bora Nera spread throughout Istria, they collaborate with restaurants, cafés, even a men‘s hair salon. They especially like to highlight their collaboration with the Hudo hair salon in Pula, whose owners lived in Norway for five years. From Erika and Matteo, they even bought a Rocket apartment espresso machine. Besides Hudo, they also collaborate with Backyard in Pula, and Sorsi, the first natural wine bar in Pula, where their coffee complements natural wines. But their collaborations go far beyond classic cafés. They worked with a CBD producer who approached them for a collaboration and with whom they made casarra with CBD. Then came the collaboration with the Monachus distillery from Motovun; their Peru became the soul of the gin Breakfast in Palermo – the first coffee gin in Croatia.
The real magic happens when you sit in their garden in front of the red house: time simply stands still. The garden is wild, uncut, but precisely in its untamed state, irresistibly beautiful – flowers defy the rules, grass dances in the wind, and trees provide shade for the tables and chairs. Birds chirp, the air smells of freshly roasted beans. Matteo and Erika offer you their El Salvador from Divisadero Farm prepared as Turkish coffee – rich, thick, aromatic. On filter, they bring you Ethiopia Guji, light, fruity, which blossoms when prepared as a filter. The espresso comes from Costa Rica: Alexis – silky, full of flavor, excellent with milk, but also intense and complex on its own. They show you how different cups change the aroma and flavor profile of the coffee – a wider cup emphasizes fruitiness, a narrower one intensifies the aroma.
Matteo and Erika don‘t necessarily want to increase production, they want to stay small, special, local. Their goal is to offer coffee that is different, that breaks paradigms. Istria is a region known for wine and olive oil – a world-renowned terroir – but, they say, it‘s time for coffee to appear on that map, too. And not just any coffee, but coffee that comes directly from plantations, roasted in smaller quantities, carefully, with understanding. Coffee that shows that the Italian tradition – bitter, burnt, short espresso made in a hurry – is not the only way. Matteo and Erika want to offer something else, fruity, light, aromatic, complex. The agencies they work with, as they say, want something else besides reliable wine and oil. "Some people don‘t drink wine, some maybe don‘t even like olive oil, but almost everyone drinks coffee."
Coffee in Istria, just like in neighboring Italy, is often a very conservative concept. People are reluctant to give up old habits, reluctant to open the door to new, true aromas of that wondrous plant. And that‘s exactly why Bora Nera is not just a roastery; it is a signpost for necessary changes, proof that this path, the path of quality and honesty, is very much needed. That Istria, along with its wines and oils, can also become a region of top-quality coffee – coffee that carries the story of its terroir, the scent of distant lands, the taste of the sun and the soul of the hardworking hands that picked it in Third World countries.
And so, when your journey takes you through Vodnjan, slow down. Pause. Find the red house and step into its uncut, magical garden. Sit at one of the tables, order a coffee and, if you‘re lucky, talk to Matteo and Erika. With two dreamers who, from a chance encounter with the scent of coffee in distant Laos, created a story that is slowly but surely changing the perception of what coffee is, and what it can be, in Istria, and perhaps beyond.
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