Learning how to espresso yourself

Confessions of a coffee-hating Italian Vanessa Hrvatin

People never seem to believe me when I tell them I’m Italian. It could be my Slovenian last name or my blonde hair, but I really am Italian.

My dad moved to Canada from northern Italy when he was six, and my mom was born in Montreal after her parents moved from Italy several years before. My entire family is loud (we talk over one another). We love to eat. My Nonno firmly believes that any sickness can be cured with a shot of grappa. And of course, we all love coffee.

Well actually, not all of us do. I can’t stand it. I don’t like the smell, the taste, or how jittery it makes me feel.

This, of course, has caused some problems for me over the years. In my early teens I would choke down a cup of coffee just because I didn’t want to feel left out. Eventually I stopped drinking it all together.

My Nonno in Montreal loved making cappuccino for everyone. In the evening, he would go around the room, point at each person, and say, “cappuccino?” Everyone would nod. Then he’d get to me. “No grazie, Nonno,” I’d respond.

He’d freeze. “No?” he’d say, pure shock in his eyes. Then he’d ask several times if I was sure. After saying no a couple hundred times, he’d shake his head, and move on. This happened every single time I visited.

Most of my family still can’t accept that I don’t drink coffee, but maybe there’s a reason for their refusal to move on. After all, coffee is a cornerstone of Italian culture.

In the late 1400’s coffee made its way into Italy through Venice, and according to coffee historian Jonathan Morris, this means they were probably the first country in Europe to get their hands on the beans.

For hundreds of years coffee was seen as a luxury, something only accessible to the upper class. By the time the First World War happened, Italians were advertising coffee as a way to keep soldiers awake and ready to fight, but it wasn’t until after the Second World War that the Italian coffee craze really took flight.

By this time different versions of the espresso machine had been developed, a contraption that was ideal because it produced a concentrated cup of coffee quickly. Then, in 1948, Achille Gaggia developed a machine that created crema – the layer of foam that floats on an espresso. “Because the water pressure (from this machine) is so high, you get the crema on top, which is really what makes an espresso an espresso,” says Morris.

By the 1960s Italy had become an industrialized country. Coffee shops and supermarkets were common, providing a platform to market the beverage. It was around this time that Italians started drinking coffee at home on a regular basis. Today, the country produces about 70 per cent of the coffee machines in the world, which is one of the reasons coffee is so aligned with Italian culture.

But of course, it’s not just the machinery that makes coffee what it is in Italy. “The best Italian espresso blends are harmonious in flavour, and that’s contrary to where the speciality coffee world that we’re living in has gone,” Morris explains. “When people go to Italy they often find the coffee quite difficult to stomach, just as when Italians come here they find our mass coffee equally difficult to stomach.”

Even within Italy, coffee preferences differ depending on where you live. In Trieste ( the north, where my dad is from), they drink Arabica coffee which has a sweet and delicate taste. In Naples ( more south, my mom’s parents are from a town one hour northwest of here) you’ll find robusta coffee, which is bitter.

But the one rule that seems to unite all Italians is cappuccino in the morning before 11 a. m. – milk on a full stomach is non è buono. You might be able to get away with a café macchiato in the afternoon ( coffee with just a drizzle of milk), but typically Italians eat a big lunch followed by an espresso. And this is where my family breaks the rules. They have coffee – including cappuccinos – any time of the day: morning, afternoon and after dinner.

When I ask my mom why this is the case, she isn’t sure, and chalks it up to adapting to Canadian culture. Oh, great. Now I’m going to have to start convincing people I’m Canadian as well. Have I mentioned that I can’t stand beavertails?

ITALY WAS LIKELY THE FIRST NATION IN EUROPE TO GET THEIR HANDS ON COFFEE BEANS.