The other adult beverage.....

Congrats to Wolfgang for starting this thread. I got home from a movie,
saw that 80 posts had suddenly appeared, and assumed it was a flame
war.

|But no! Good strong stuff, with just the right amount of crema.

I've spent much of the past two months in Torre Annunziata, a very,
very rough suburb of Naples which I've been visiting for nearly twenty
years.

Among the things I've noticed in this time are that

- In even the meanest cafe, your espresso cup is kept in hot water
until it's used, so it doesn't cool the coffee.

- At most, a cup of espresso will be served about a quarter full.
That's a quarter in height - much less than a quarter of the volume.

- Italians drink only espresso most of the time - except possibly at
breakfast. You can have a coffee with milk - cappucino or latte - up
till about eleven, but after that it becomes *very* eccentric and,
frankly, anglo-saxon.

- Virtually all Italians, when they make coffee at home, use a plain
Moka stovetop machine.

- Every different big Italian city has its own coffee manufacturer. In
Naples it's Kimbo. In Trieste it's Illy (widely seen as an aristocrat).
I can't remember Rome, Milan, but they each have their own brand -
with, in each case, many different varieties.

- A beautifully made espresso in Italy costs around thirty or forty
cents - one of the reasons why Starbucks don't exist there.

I'm afraid I don't rate American (or English - or of course yeughhhh!
Irish) coffee much. The stuff people normally drink is watery. The
espresso is far, far too thin, and made with no idea of how it's
supposed to be made. There used to be an awful prententious habit in
upmarket places in the US of servin g a bit of lemon with an espresso -
you were supposed to squeeze the lemon rind so the oils would do
something or other to the coffee. But the coffee was so diabolically
bad in the first place that this pompous bit of fluff was farcical.

When I visit America now I alwasys bring with me an ingenious
electronic Moka machine that I bought many years ago at Milan airport.
And a packet of Lavazza.

Lazarus

Steve wrote:
On Thu, 10 Jan 2008 23:41:01 +0000, Lazarus Cooke
wrote:


- A beautifully made espresso in Italy costs around thirty or forty
cents - one of the reasons why Starbucks don't exist there.


I hate to bear the bad news, but in September when my wife and I were
driving into Rome on the A-12...there it was! An effin' Starbucks. We
saw another downtown. Tragedia, tragedia.

One of the few time I was in a Starbucks I ordered a dopio (a double
espresso). They served it in a paper cup. If they do that in Italy I
think they might be facing some serious violence.

The Starbucks in Italy is probably for the tourists.

--
Cut "to the chase" for my email address.

In article . com,
Steve wrote:

On Thu, 10 Jan 2008 23:41:01 +0000, Lazarus Cooke
wrote:

- A beautifully made espresso in Italy costs around thirty or forty
cents - one of the reasons why Starbucks don't exist there.

I hate to bear the bad news, but in September when my wife and I were
driving into Rome on the A-12...there it was! An effin' Starbucks. We
saw another downtown. Tragedia, tragedia.

??

http://tinyurl.com/2yb4et

Lazarus

103 posts on coffee snobbery! (no I didn't read hardly any!)

Our civilization has definitely peaked. Downhill from here...

Jon.

wrote:
103 posts on coffee snobbery! (no I didn't read hardly any!)

Our civilization has definitely peaked. Downhill from here...

Jon.

Well, it's cabin fever time.

The best canned ground coffee, IMO, is Yuban. I never buy it any longer,
though, and haven't for some time, nor any others of that class, so
beware of my opinion.

--
Cut "to the chase" for my email address.

On Jan 10, 11:49*pm, wrote:
Our civilization has definitely peaked. Downhill from here...

You're being way too hard on civilization. Actually, it was a fairly
interesting and informative thread IMO. Lots of good info & opinions,
with minimal unavoidable snobbery. And don't overlook the fact that
we're about 110 posts into it without a serious flame war, despite
input from several of the usual suspects. That's gotta give
civilization a boost, eh?

Joe F.

On Fri, 11 Jan 2008 05:40:56 -0800 (PST), rb608
wrote:

You're being way too hard on civilization. Actually, it was a fairly
interesting and informative thread IMO. Lots of good info & opinions,
with minimal unavoidable snobbery. And don't overlook the fact that
we're about 110 posts into it without a serious flame war, despite
input from several of the usual suspects. That's gotta give
civilization a boost, eh?

Ahhhh, horse puckies. You don't know what you're talking about,
nitwit. vbg

On Jan 11, 9:11*am, Dave LaCourse wrote:
Ahhhh, horse puckies. *You don't know what you're talking about,
nitwit. * vbg

Oh yeah? Well I hear that McCain drinks instant coffee. So
there. :-)

Joe F.

On Fri, 11 Jan 2008 06:20:28 -0800 (PST), rb608
wrote:

Oh yeah? Well I hear that McCain drinks instant coffee. So
there. :-)

Yeah, but what does McClain drink?

wrote in message
...

103 posts on coffee snobbery!

Really? Could you direct us to it?

(no I didn't read hardly any!)

No ****.

Our civilization has definitely peaked. Downhill from here...

We've been writing about the effects of illiteracy for a long long time.
You should have re.......um......never mind.

Wolfgang