Italian traditions: coffee, part one

It’s fairly common on travel blogs, to see a list of “the best (insert word) in the world”, and so it is in Ben Groundwater’s piece on where to get good coffee.
And it’s no secret that Italy has the best coffee in the world.
Why this is, and what’s so good about it, is often overlooked by people who actually know nothing about coffee, and the ritual of making it, and want to just show off their latest whizz-bang home machine that guarantees milk frothing like no other.

Coffee in Italy is sacred, and so we’re giving you a series on what Italian coffee is all about, how to drink it, what to order, what to put in it, or what not to do with your coffee.
Wikipedia has it that coffee was first introduced to Europe via Venice and its trade with Arab nations.
It was first sold to the wealthy and was finally accepted in the Catholic nation by Pope Clement VIII despite calls to ban the Muslim beverage.

In the video above, you can see a piece on why Starbucks is unlikely ever to open its stores in the “Belpaese” (leaving aside the irony that he’s sitting in front of a rack of crisp packets).

Most Italians don’t even know what Starbucks is – and if they did it’s unlikely it would ever reach a status above “fad”.
So stay tuned for our round of posts on what Italian coffee is all about.
A warning on the second part of the video – if you don’t wish to be offended by bad language, I suggest you stop watching after the news piece… My apologies but I couldn’t figure out how to cut it in half.