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Or is it more a sense of place/experience?
For me it is. My espresso isn’t as good as the stuff I get in the forward thinking coffee shops I buy my coffee but I prefer it over what I drank in Italy.
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I kinda think of it like this - it’s like wine or bread in Europe, eg France with bread or Italy with wine: the standard day to day stuff is noticeably better than what we get here at the same level. Of course you can now get a better loaf of bread from a specialist artisan baker in the UK vs a boggo bakery in France, but the main thing you notice is that a baguette that costs a euro from an entirely standard bakery in France is a world apart from the equivalent in the uk. Same goes for drinking the cheapest/average wine in a normal cafe or bar in Italy vs the UK. I’d happily order a wine in an Italian cafe without much thought, but I’d probably be a lot more trepidatious ordering one at a standard street corner cafe in the UK.
Good bread, wine or coffee tend to be the exception in the UK, compared to them being the standard over there. Or at least the baseline is a lot higher.
So of course the €1 Italian espresso isn’t going to be world class, but at least for me it never fails to surprise me how reliable and drinkable it is - which is an experience completely different to buying coffee in the UK.
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It's just not really the same thing, in the same way that a regular British household cup of tea made in a mug with a teabag and a splash of milk is objectively dogshit but millions find it incredibly satisfying because they've had it since childhood, and if you give a brit some fancy tea they're unlikely to adopt it as their everyday brew. As Johnny-Comelatelys to espresso we don't have all that legacy stuff, we're more interested in the aromatics rather than cultivating roast flavours which necessarily leads on to a much keener interest in provenance and preparation.
I like mediterranean style espresso when I'm there, served with sugar and a glass of water. Usually because it means I'm on holiday in the sunshine. Its just a cultural thing innit.
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Tijmen
Nef
Stevethecoffee
@hangedup
As a very trendy third-waver having never been to Italy and had a 1€ espresso from a street corner, can someone explain to me how it can be good coffee? I’m guessing it’s super roasty with wide margin for error so doesn’t have to be particularly carefully prepared? Or is it more a sense of place/experience?