In Italy, people have unwritten rules when drinking coffee and tourists are advised to follow them if they come here.
Barry Divola, a writer for Stuff (New Zealand), recounted his coffee drinking experiences in Italy in the article "Don't Order a Latte: Coffee Rules in Italy". According to Barry, these are what he concluded after a month in Rome and spending a lot of time drinking coffee.
In the morning, Barry goes to the bar, but not for beer or wine, but for coffee. In Italy, you can go to the same place in the evening for wine and in the morning for coffee. In the morning in Rome’s Trastevere neighborhood, the San Calisto bar is full of locals sipping coffee and eating pastries. By nightfall, the bar is packed with drinkers.
To drink a cup of coffee, the first thing you need to do is order the type of drink. In Italy, customers order at one counter and pay at another. A special point is that the shops do not have big, small, or medium cups, but only a certain size, depending on the type of coffee the customer orders.
A cup of cappuccino in Rome. Photo: Unsplash
If you just order a coffee, you will get an espresso—black coffee served in a small cup. An Americano is a small cup with a lot of hot water. A cappuccino, on the other hand, has a flat white layer on top and is not topped with chocolate powder. When you order a latte, you will get a glass of milk, because latte means milk in Italian. If you want the closest thing to a latte, order a cappuccino.
In terms of prices, customers who drink at a table (al tavola) will pay more than those who drink at the bar (al banco). However, in some bars like San Calisto, customers pay just one euro for a cup of coffee. Prices also depend on where you are. Barry paid 16 euros for two cups of coffee and two hot chocolates in an upscale neighborhood of Rome.
The final coffee rule Barry learned in Italy was not to drink cappuccino after 11 a.m., especially after lunch or dinner. Italians only drink cappuccino for breakfast and take this rule very seriously. When Barry ordered a macchiato after lunch, he said he saw a “little bit of disdain” in the barista’s eyes.
“I lived to tell the tale, though. The coffee was great,” he shared.
Hoai Anh
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