At half past seven someone is already standing at the counter of a bar in Bologna, elbow on the marble, the tazzina in front of them, reading the headlines of the newspaper that belongs to the neighbour. Behind the counter saucers clatter, the machine hisses, the barista calls "due caffè" into the room, and in the time it takes to tear open a sachet of sugar the espresso is there. You drink it in two sips, put a coin on the counter and are back on the street. The whole thing takes a minute. The bar is still the most important room in the neighbourhood.
Pay first, then order
Whoever orders coffee in Italy for the first time gets it wrong, and the barista lets them know kindly. In most bars you pay first at the till, get a slip, put it on the counter with a coin on top and only then say what you would like. "Un caffè" is an espresso, nothing else; if you want something else, you say so. At the counter it costs less than at a table, because a table means time and the counter does not. And the cappuccino has a time of day: until eleven, with a cornetto; after that nobody who lives there orders one.
The bar is the place where in Italy everyone is equal, the lawyer next to the tradesman, for a minute, with the same cup in hand. In Naples there is even an institution for it: the caffè sospeso, which you pay for along with your own and which later goes to someone who cannot afford one. There is hardly another everyday object around which so much courtesy has gathered as around this small cup.
The rhythm of the day
In Italy the espresso divides the day the way the clock does elsewhere. One before work, standing, in passing. Another around eleven, when the office empties for a moment and everyone stands in the same bar. One after lunch, without which the meal is not over; in a restaurant it comes without anyone asking. And in the evening, after dinner with friends, the last one, sometimes corretto, with a shot of grappa the host pours without asking whether you want it.
None of these coffees takes longer than a few minutes. Still, they are the moments the day holds on to: you meet the same people, in the same spot, and talk about the same things. In Italy the espresso is an appointment you cannot cancel.
What of that fits at home
The bar cannot be imported; the place can. If you have a Coffee Bar at home, you have a counter you stand at instead of sitting at the kitchen table, and that is the whole difference. On the cup rail hang the tazzine, six, because six people want an espresso after dinner; the sugar stands in a jar you spoon from; the machine at hip height, and you stand in front of it the way the barista stands behind her counter, with her back to the kitchen and her face to the guests.
What you can also take with you is the pace. An espresso at home needs neither scales nor stopwatch, only the minute after dinner when you stand at the counter, hand out the cups and have everyone together once more before the first ones leave. The place where a bar would stand is enough for that; what it looks like with us is in Where the First Coffee Stands.