The Starbucks story begins with a defining moment, not widely told. Gordon Bowker had grown up in Seattle, enrolled at the University of San Francisco, dropped out. He bummed around Europe, where he acquired a taste for English beer.

The year was 1962 and Bowker was in Italy. In Rome one afternoon, he took a seat at a caffè opposite the Trevi Fountain; the tourists were studying guidebooks, the locals were reading the Corriere della Sera, and Bowker began reading his copy of the Rome Daily American.