Yeaaaah…. No.
I once flew overseas into Rome on an Italian airline and it was noticeable at the breakfast meal service before landing that several passengers refrained from drinking any coffee or tea.
They were saving themselves for a ‘real Italian espresso experience’ and didn’t want to spoil it by indulging in whatever it was the airline was serving. They wanted to be good and ready for that first caffeine hit on Italian soil.
Sure enough, there was a café straight off the walkway from the plane, before passport control and customs, and the eager passengers piled in there for the first espresso of the day.
So when someone offers me ‘The real Italian espresso experience’ that’s what I think of, the sight of those people planning and looking forward and savouring the experience of drinking an espresso in Italy.
No disrespect to this coffee machine supplier who obviously understands the significance of experiencing an espresso in Italy and who, I’m sure, makes great tasting coffee, better than much of what gets served in cafes up and down the country, but don’t try telling me this is real or Italian or possibly even, for those of us who have experienced a real Italian espresso, an espresso.
I’m not buying it (although I’m always happy for anybody else to buy me a coffee and will never turn my nose up at it, even when it comes in a ridiculously tall glass and looks like liquid fertiliser).
