Italian coffee addiction

As a lot of you might know, I was used not to drink coffee at all before I came to Italy being absolute supporter of tea. Less then 1 month was needed for me to understand that Italians are blissfully ignorant of the delights of fine tea and a bit less then a year for me to start drinking at least some kind of coffee. My new addiciton is cappucino. and I was just about to post about it, but then changed my mind and decided to use this opportunity to share more about Italian coffee addiction!

When food is the heart of life in Italy, then coffee might easily be its soul. Coffee is the proper round-up for any proper meal, the centre of any proper breakfast. In the European countries that miss their own coffee culture the merry-go-round of different kinds of coffee is often reduced for reasons of simplicity, dividing coffee into "normal/black", "with milk" and "latte" (large milk with coffee), leaving the fancy titles of Turkish coffee, espresso, latte macchiato and other such for the few knowledgeable ones. Or the show-offs.

So the post is for those, who ever wondered what is the difference between espresso, latte macchiato, caffe macchiato, macchiatone and other fancy words and tastes...:)

Caffè normale - this is what you get when you walk into a bar and ask for a coffee. Also called caffè liscio (straight coffee) or espresso. You enter a bar, say: "Un caffè, per favore". The bar-keeper will ask: "Liscio?" ("Straight?"). This is your last way out of ordering a coffee with some quantity of milk, because you can either say: "Sì" (yes, I want an espresso) or specify any of the milk-coffee versions listed below.Espresso is not only a tiny cup of very strong coffee. It's made in a specific way: the water is heated up to the point of evapourating in the machine and pressed through the fine powder. Contact with cold air makes the vapour liquify again. This is espresso. All other Italian coffee types are based on espresso (unlike the French coffee that is based on strong filter coffee that has a different production process). Espresso is rarely good outside of Italy, but even in Italy the taste is not the same. It's simple: the quality of the espresso depends on the amount of coffees made each day. The more, the better. For this reason the best coffee is often found in railway station bars and not in isolated mountain restaurants.

Espresso is ok to order at any time of the day, though not too usual right before a meal. In the mornings most people order coffee with milk, such as:

Caffè macchiato is espresso with a little bit of milk. It's still a very tiny cup of coffee for those who don't have time to lose over their coffee but don't want to drink it black either. The added milk can either be cold (caffè macchiato freddo) or hot (caffè macchiato caldo or just macchiato caldo).

Macchiatone is a bigger version of caffè macchiato for those who want to enjoy some more milk foam, but don't want to get a full cappuccino.

Cappuccino (also called cappuccio for short) is served in a cup about the size of a "usual" (Nordic) coffee and is espresso buried in milk foam. This is the ideal morning coffee as it's easy on the stomach and very delicious together with a nice brioche. But - attention! - cappuccino is only a morning coffee. Having it at any time after 11:00 in the morning will automatically shout of being a foreigner who is not initiated into the Italian ways. The exception can be made if you happen to be an elderly lady and it's a very cold day. The worst that one can do is order cappuccino after a meal. This will make everyone from the waitress to the dish-washer snigger under their breath. Why? Well, having coffee after a meal has a stimulating effect on the digestion that doesn't really work if the coffee is served with a significant amount of milk. It doesn't make sense to add hot milk on top of a full stomach. Exceptions are made for caffè macchiato, however - that's a way out for those who don't like black coffee. However, I don't care and ask for cappucino at any point of time:

Latte macchiato is not the same as caffè macchiato. As the latter literally means "marked coffee", then latte macchiato is, obviously, "marked milk" - hot milk with a little (half a cup of) espresso. This is not a usual drink for Italians to have in a bar, though at home this can be quite common. A cup of hot milk is a morning classic**; variations include milk with cocoa powder and milk with coffee.

That's more or less it with the milk. Any of these can also be served with some cocoa on request (this produces even more different names). What comes to coffee itself, there are a number of variations:

Caffè americano - yes! this is it! That's what you need to ask for if you are a tourist in Italy and happen to have had enough of the world-class espresso and would just like to enjoy a cup of "normal" coffee like at home. Only that it will not be coffee like at home. As the only way of making coffee that the Italians recognise is the espresso-method, your caffè americano will just be espresso with added hot water. Sounds disgusting.

Caffè ristretto is a double-strength, half-size espresso for strong men who aren't afraid of a challenge.

Caffè lungo is a 1,5 size espresso. This is what the Portuguese should ask for while in Italy (an Italian espresso is about 2/3 the size of a usual Portuguese coffee).Caffè doppio is a double-size espresso and will most likely be served in a cappuccino-cup so that the espresso looks sad and lonely at the bottom.

Caffè shakerato is espresso with ice, well shaked. Perfect on a hot day.

Well, that's briefly the end of my experience with Italian coffee and what I found in internet, you don't think that I knew all that details myself, don't you?:)