We drink coffee as soon as we wake up, before any other vital action. Please don’t talk to us until you’ve swallowed the black potion. We take it in the middle of the day, to escape the boredom of the company computer and a bit to have the excuse to smoke a cigarette. After lunch it’s mandatory. After dinner, it’s a must. Witness to improbable discussions at the bar counter, in the kitchen, everywhere, coffee is a cultural and national symbol. We venture into parochial and patriotic crusades to defend Italian coffee, swearing that like at the bar under the house, we don’t drink it anywhere.

Coffee is among the most drunk drinks in the world, but, listen up, we are not on the podium of the major users: there are the countries of northern Europe, while we place ourselves only in 13th place, drinking it almost exclusively at home with mocha, and at the bar with the classic espresso.
“You will have no other God outside of Bialetti”, thunder your father and your grandmother, not knowing that there are many other declensions. Thanks to the fashions that come from far away, especially from countries like the United States, great consumers, Italian coffee is no longer an inviolable territory.

So how do you drink this coffee? Start with filtered coffee, which uses the principle of hot or cold extraction with water on the blend. Brewed coffee – don’t call it American which is something else – can be made in different ways: alchemists’ stuff, small chemists’ stuff, ampoules and drips. V60, Chemex, Aeropress, Clever Dripper, Syphon, French Press: these are not sexual bondage practices, but tools with which coffee is extracted. In Milan we went around trying the best ones. Defecated coffee, the world’s largest beans and various cups to greet our tachycardia, mydriasis pupils and awake nights.

Translated by @silaskin