Coffee Culture in Italy || EATALY Vol. 2

Standing coffee
Coffee culture is slightly different in Italy. Coffee is more of a quick fix, a shot of quality caffeine. As we were people watching at a local cafe, we realised that people come in for an expresso, down it within 4 minutes and leave…quite different from our coffee breaks or coffee dates on a lazy Sunday afternoon. Normally at a café, there would be a bar area and a seating area, most locals stand at the bar to have their drinks (or meals even). This could be because drinks at the bar costs half as much as ‘eating in’, so if you’re not planning to stay for a couple hours, it would be a smarter choice just to stand.

Coffee means business

I have been to a fair amount of coffee shops and ordered some lattes. The great anticipation of a graceful swan spreading its frothy wings to cover that expresso shot…was no where to be seen. Instead, was milk being aggressively combined with coffee and served at the bar. I realised I have made a huge mistake… Italy was only famous for its coffee, not for its latte art. I then, disappointedly, did some googling and found that Latte art was in fact invented and popularised in the U.S. Lesson learnt, I guess Italians really focus on the taste of coffee and less on the aesthetics.

Try something new

Coffee in Italy is generally quite nice, at any place really. You may find many more coffee variations (ones that you might need to google to find out what it exactly is), be adventurous and try some out. I ordered a Caffe D’orzo, a roasted barley drink that's caffeine-free (yes, I frantically googled it before reaching the till). It had a slight coffee taste, like very weak coffee. This is a drink made in the expresso machine (like you would making normal coffee), so I’m not sure if it was the residual smell from the expresso machine or if it was what the drink actually tasted like. All in all, I was happy I tried something different.  

Hit up this café in Rome if you’re looking to experience Italian coffee:

Antica Caffe Greco

06 679 17 00

Via dei Condotti, 86, 00187 Roma RM, Italy

(It’s right next to the Spanish Steps)

Hope you are well. 


Love,

Vivien

Weekend Explorer

Living in the city can sometimes be quite overwhelming, especially when I have to travel daily on crowded public transport. It's very common to want to stay home and just chill on my day-offs. Fortunately, a friend came back to Hong Kong and we met up on a date. She had always been the one that would convince me to venture out and be spontaneous. 

So under her influence, we decided to go for a picnic at Repulse Bay, a beach that had recently been developed into the new 'it' place. To my surprise, it was a lot more stylish and hip than I had expected. There was a new mall, The Pulse, with the daintiest restaurants, cafes and cupcake shops you would ever had imagined. 

Fancy a cuppa??

It was my two girlfriends' birthday and we decided to celebrate by having this 'once in a life time' afternoon tea feast at The Ritz. We made a reservation for afternoon tea at 7:30pm since they were fully booked during the supposed 'tea time'. Expecting our table to be the only awkward group to have tea for dinner, turns out, every single table of people were having tea (not that weird after all ain't it).

This place was extremely luxurious and high-end I felt completely out of place: Legitimate English gentlemen in tux and ladies expressing as much sexiness as possible (while still remaining elegant) having presumably profound conversations, while I try to walk like a lady through the corridors in fatal anxiety. 

Anyway, back to the afternoon tea. The choices of teas were pretty good, the standard Earl Gray, Darjeeling, Green Tea and all other choices, but I ended up ordering Lemon Verbena (a tea that I have been scavenging for since trying it in Paris). It is this herby tea that I believe has calming effects and was a source of medicine. Finger sandwiches and sweet desserts were served first, and scones were served warm afterwards. I am not joking, the scones are AMAZING!!!! Soft, flaky, buttery, worth all calories for the day! The sandwiches were really good too, aside from the normal smoked salmon, cucumber and eggs, they also had cheese and chutney, ham with mustard and chicken mayo; all of which were really good (loved the ham with mustard one). To be very honest, I've never had afternoon tea with good sweet pastries (partially because I never had 'high class' tea), but it might have been that since the cakes and sweets came as a set, they had to choose the 'not as good' dessert to balance the budget? I have no idea, this is only my assumption. Okay, so since this seemed like such a legitimate afternoon tea, my expectations for the pastries sky-rocketed. The final verdict for pastries: I don't think any sweet pasties in an afternoon tea are the bomb. Let's just focus on scones, tea and sandwiches. They were just, in my opinion, overly sweet and low quality. To be fair, I think if we had ordered cakes and pastries separately, those might be tasty as hell, but in an afternoon tea? I don't think so. 

Final shout out to my lovely ladies, HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!

Love,                 

Vivien