Returning to the US after two weeks in Italy, the experience of waking up in America once more confronts me with that most pressing of questions: why is our Yankee coffee of such poor quality compared to their Neopolitan brew? An enigma which fittingly requires a great deal of caffeine to unravel. Some of us need a double espresso to address it, at any rate.
I mean, it's not like American and Italy import beans from different countries: there is no hillside in Campania famous for its superb coffee crop; no state of the union that can only cultivate an inferior bean. The raw material comes from Brazil or Africa and Indonesia and is shipped to us and them. So why am I drinking less flavorful coffee at my local Starbucks than I do at the Gran Caffe Gambrinus?
No doubt the class of vessel into which the espresso is poured matters, as does the ambiance within which it is consumed. And the uniformed Marcello Mastroianni at Gambrinus is a coffee career professional versus the minimum-wage "barista" struggling with the Gaggia at the cafe around the corner from my house. But still.
I could decant their respective espressos out into two plastic cups, blind taste-test them, and I'd instantly know which was American and which Italian. There is no contest: one is rich, dark and redolent of La Doce Vita; the other is, well, it is what it is, I suppose, and that's the best we can say of the substance. Come on, my fellow Americans, there is no excuse for this self-defeating state of affairs. We surely cannot make America great again without a decent shot of coffee to get us going.
