Ask most specialty coffee people what they think about Italian espresso, and you’ll get the same answer: too dark, burnt, bitter, stuck in the past. I had similar-ish assumptions before I went to Italy recently. But I’d never actually tested it myself. So I packed my refractometer (a tool to measure espresso strength) and spent ten days measuring shots all over the country – from Milan to Naples. (Heck, there were even a few shots in the country-side!)
What I found challenged everything I thought I knew about Italian coffee. In this article, I’ll tell you how Italian coffee looks in 2025 from the perspective of a 3rd wave coffee snob – eh – lover.
