the changing caffè culture(s) of italy
When most people think of European “cafe culture,” they probably think of spending long hours sipping coffee in old-style cafes, filled with little wooden tables and chairs that spill out onto the sidewalk, perhaps even a fancier cafe with waiters in white coats dashing about. But this is really just a French style of having coffee. Italians will almost always have an espresso, a macchiatto (espresso “stained” with just a tiny bit of milk), or a relatively small cappuccino, and they’ll have it standing at the bar, usually crowded to elbow-room-only in the mornings, and it’s a two- or three-minute experience at most.
This is the “real” way to experience Italian coffee if you ever visit here, and the beauty of it is that as you get better at Italian - both speaking and understanding - you see how almost everyone is a “regular” at their particular caffè, local to their home or work, and depending on how convincingly you pronounce your order (espresso is merely “caffè,” a cappuccino is simply “cappuccio” in Milan), you’ll get included in the banter and jokes volleying across the bar as well. It’s that tiny moment most expats will recognize, when you start to feel like maybe you belong.
Most caffès will have two or three tables tucked into their narrow corners, and in the centers of cities there are more French-style cafes for the tourists, and which conveniently morph into apperitivo (“happy hour” they like to call it) bars as it becomes evening. Because sitting at a table is not “the norm,” there will always be two prices for everything — one price for the bar, one at a table (to include service in some vague way I suppose) — a detail which it took me an embarrassing couple of weeks to really understand.
Now, there is a greater variety of cafes though, taking influence from the US as well. I read an Italian novel recently in which the author waxed poetic for at least two full pages about the NY coffee shop experience: the living-room-like decor, the mix of people, staying for hours and hours, some people with laptops to work all day, plugging into the wall outlet without even asking. Some of the bookstores chains have this style of cafe, where people sit even without ordering anything to test-drive books (often to compare a bunch of travel guides, I’ve noticed), or work, or just sit and rest, having long conversations. Starbucks doesn’t exist here (yet, or maybe ever - I read that the company thinks if it tried to expand here, and failed, it would be sort of embarrassing) but I’ve seen a few Starbucks knock-offs, particularly near universities, where students meet to study, and at least a few of those are sure to be American study-abroad students.
Some regular caffès will give little paper to-go cups, I suppose to emulate that scene they’re so familiar with from American movies: everyone walking down a busy street carrying their coffee. It’s a little ridiculous though, since a shot of espresso only fills a few centimeters of even the tiny paper cups, and is gone in seconds (and there’s not much risk of people developing a taste for American “long coffees” - the watery “caffè americano” or a Starbucks-style huge cappuccino or latte). But there must be some demand there for at least a more international appearance. And of course there’s nothing wrong with variety, as long as those tiny, cramped, noisy authentic caffès remain.
