L'Italo-Americano

L'Italo-Americano THURSDAY, JULY 11, 2019 www.italoamericano.org 6 NEWS & FEATURES TOP STORIES PEOPLE EVENTS Continued from page 4 the history and development of their businesses, but also Naples' undeniable love for coffee, and the uniqueness of Neapolitan cof- fee culture, in all its facets. Both the Ciorfitos and the Castagnolas come from a long tradition of coffee making. Broth- ers Massimiliano and Raffaele, for instance, may have "only" opened their café in 1990, but their father, Massimiliano tells us, "was a talented barista, with more than 50 years experience." Bar Mexico has been open since 1948, and its history, as told by Errico Castagnola, tells a lot about the history of coffee culture in the city: "our café opened in 1948 and it has been always asso- ciated with the Passalacqua blend. We went for 'Bar Mexico' because, in those years, it was customary to name cafés that also roasted their coffee after the South-American country they'd get their raw beans from. For instance, you may be familiar with Caffé Kimbo (a popular Neapolitan coffee blend you can find also at the supermarket), whose original name was 'Café do Brazil.'" Love for coffee and expertise in how to make it clearly runs in the Castagnolas and the Ciorfitos' blood, but why are Neapolitans as a whole considered the real cof- fee connoisseurs of Italy? Massi- miliano Ciorfito explains it to us: "In my opinion, Neapolitans are real experts when it comes to good coffee. Every time they go to a café, they check the barista and his work out and, if they like what they drink, you'll hear them say 'ah! This is a good coffee!' And if it's a really outstanding brew, they no longer leave you: at Caffé Ciorfito, we've had cus- tomers coming to us for the past 30 years!" But Neapolitans, Ciorfito con- tinues, didn't gain their coffee knowledge only through observa- tion, but also through consump- tion: "Neapolitans drink at least 5 or 6 coffees a day so, in time, they become real connoisseurs." Just for your information, a recent Nielsen research states that Ital- ians drink 1.5 cups of coffee per capita every day, although I am sure there are plenty of people around the country who edge closer to Neapolitan numbers. Yours truly included, as a matter of fact! Coffee is an immense pleasure for Neapolitans and, for this rea- son, it has to be good. A little gem, a gold nugget, a delicacy available and accessible to all. As simple a pleasure as it may be, your Neapolitan tazzulella involves much more work that you'd expect and that 's why, probably, coffee in Naples just tastes so incredible. Bar Mexico's Errico Castagnola underlines the importance of using only freshly ground coffee and of serving cof- fee in a certain way: "our caffet- tieri use powerful coffee grinders and small steel spoons to grind coffee beans and prepare single portions for each of our cus- tomers. It's a methodic work, that needs loads of perseverance but, for us, coffee beans can't give their best if they're not freshly ground. Using already-ground coffee is very wrong: you loose the best a blend has to offer." Errico also tells us about the very specific way coffee is served in Naples, a way that often leaves travelers from other parts of Italy a tad confused: "Our coffee is served with sugar and in a hot cup. This is typical of Naples and mostly unknown in the rest of Italy." So, if you like your brew bitter, make sure you say it to your Neapolitan barista before hand. But the uniqueness of Neapolitan coffee culture is not only a matter of flavors and brew- ing methods, it also involves Naples' proverbial big heart. Enters the caffé sospeso, or "sus- pended coffee," the practice to pay for an extra coffee when you go to get yours, so that someone who can't pay can enjoy a tazzina anyway. While the caffé sospeso habit has been popping up here and there in other parts of Italy, in Naples is traditional, as Massim- iliano of Caffé Ciorfito tells us: "We've been doing caffé sospeso for years in our café but, recent- ly, we've upgraded the way we do it. Usually, customers wishing to leave a paid coffee for some- one get a receipt with a sticker saying 'sospeso' on it. They then give it to the barista at the counter, who places them all behind his work station. If some- one comes and can't pay for their coffee, then the barista takes down one of the paid receipts and tells the customer his cup is offered by someone else. "But because not everyone is ok with admitting they can't pay, we organized things a bit differ- ently: we keep a daily toll of all the caffé sospeso's receipts, find out how much money they are worth and we send that amount doubled to the hostel for the homeless just around the corner. We double the sum because we, as Caffé Ciorfito, want also to do our bit." The world of Neapolitan cof- fee is made, we have seen, of tra- dition, of dedication, of passion and of that quintessential heart- warming goodness typical of the people of Naples. That's why the tazzulella is so much more than a mere drink, and that's why Neapolitan coffee does not only taste good, it also is a good thing. It's important, then, tells us Erri- co Castagnola, to bring its histo- ry, tradition and craftsmanship to the rest of Italy, so much so that Bar Mexico opened up two Milanese branches under the name Expresso Napoletano. There, just like in the original Bar Mexicos in Naples (there is more than one there, too), tradition and quality are at the heart of busi- ness: "we still love coffee with the same care and quality of the past" says Castagnola, "we sup- port, in other words, tradition. We sell our blends in our cafés, rigor- ously ground on order, of course, so our customers can experience their unique aroma even before they get home." If our chat with Massimiliano and Errico thought us something is really that, in Naples, coffee is a serious affair: nothing is done by chance, everything, from the moment when the beans are ground, to the way the drink is served, follows specific rules, rules bound to a past made of history and travels, of street ven- dors and legendary characters. Neapolitan coffee in the end, is not that different from the peo- ple of its city: attached to its roots, iconic, bold and with a big heart. The two cafés featured in this article are: Caffé Ciorfito, Via San Biagio dei Librai, 90, Naples. Bar Mexico, Piazza Dante, 86 and Piazza Garibaldi, 72, Naples. Many are the blends you can find in Naples: Passalacqua is served at Bar Mexico In Naples, the first thing that goes into the tazzina is the sugar: make sure you tell your barista if you take your coffee without

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