SKY WRITING tales of contemporary life
on the road
Caffeismo TO: EDITORIAL@DELTA–SKY.COM FROM: ROGER TOLL SUBJECT: WHERE IS THE BEST COFFEE IN ITALY?
ILLUSTRATION BY Cathie bleck
it was in rome, at the celebrated Caffè Greco on fash-
ionable Via dei Condoti, that I first heard a refreshing confession that an Italian ritual might be better elsewhere than in Rome. As I sipped my macchiato, a strong espresso leavened with a dollop of steamed milk, then sighed with satisfaction at what seemed to be a perfect “It is good,” he said, coffee, my Roman friend said, “Ah, but just wait until you with the calm assur- get to Naples. They know how to make a great coffee.” ance of a champion. Two days later in Naples, passing the Umberto Gal“It is very good.” lery, a beautiful Belle-Epoque wedding cake of a building, I spotted a busy cafe full of Neopolitans enjoying a midmorning jolt of caffeine. Indeed, the coffee was even more delectable than at Caffè Greco. It was also smaller, a mere swallow of ambrosia, the highly condensed nectar of the bean. That evening, I praised that memorable, if meager, espresso ristretto to our Neapolitan friends. “Ah, but just wait until you get to Sicily,” the husband said. “That’s where they really know how to make a great coffee.” Some days later, in Sicily, I asked my neighbor at a dinner party if coffee on the island is the best in Italy. “It is good,” he said, with the calm assurance of a champion. “It is very good.” I stopped in the best cafe I could find in Taormina, a medieval clifftop jewel of a town in the shadow of smoking Mount Etna, and ordered my coffee in broken Italian. The scent of what arrived carried the promise of perfectly roasted beans and an expertly drawn coffee. The problem, though, was that it hardly existed. The dense, dark, rich coffee was so condensed it hardly wet the tip of my tongue. That’s when I decided to end my search for the perfect shot of coffee. If Italian espresso gets better—and smaller—the farther south you go, Sky March 2004
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