khiemtran | Un espresso, per piacere!

One of the nice things about Italy was being able to walk into un bar, order an espresso and drink it at the counter, and then walk out again for around 80 euro cents. No messing around with milk and latte art, no paying for tables or table service. Just great coffee without the fuss.

Actually, you generally have to order your espresso twice. First, you go to the cashier, say what you want and hand over the cash (first mistake for new players - don't try to order at the bar until you've paid). Then, you take your receipt, hand it over to the barista and repeat your order (in some modern places, there might be a computer system to pass it on, and in smaller places the barista may simply have overheard you, but it seems more common to just have you repeat it yourself). The barista will either keep your receipt, tear it, or grunt at it in recognition as if to say, "I know your face, don't try to con me out of another coffee until you've paid again".

And the drink generally is just an espresso - milk-based coffees are considered morning drinks. I don't normally drink espresso shots straight at home, but I've come to think that maybe that's just because they aren't good enough at home. I have a working theory now that Italian food is good because it's based on good fundamentals. If you can make a Margherita pizza taste good with just three toppings, you can make just about any number of variations taste good by just varying the base model slightly. Likewise, if you can make a good espresso shot, all you need to do to it is as little as necessary.

So, as you might expect, I've come back with another caffeine dependency. And, tragically, the local coffee just isn't cutting it any more, neither was the coffee from my home machine (I had a batch of stale Vittoria beans that was many months old). Then, shopping today, I noticed a shiny display of tins of Caffe Izzo ("Roasted and packaged in Naples", and sealed under nitrogen for safe shipping).

So, I fired up the machine again and ... ah, that's better! I hadn't really noticed just how stale the Vittoria beans had been getting, until I tried some of the good stuff. Now the only question is how long this batch will keep.