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Making a caffè Americano. Photo: Erin Meister
During the Allied occupation of Italy in WWII, American soldiers would walk up to a counter and order a caffè, only to be somewhat alarmed by the dainty little espresso cups placed in front of them. You can almost hear the Yankee accents echoing off the walls of this or that bar in Rome: "You call this coffee? Where's the rest of it?!" It wasn't long before the Italian baristas realized that what the boys from the U.S. of A. really wanted was a larger, diluted beverage: By adding hot water to the usual espresso, they could more or less replicate the soldiers' traditional hot cup of "mud."
Today, caffè Americano lives on many stateside coffeeshop menus alongside the more conventional brewed coffee, largely as a matter of taste. Some imbibers see the hot, watered-down espresso as a very fresh alternative to the average filtered brew. Many prefer the flavor or the body of the more voluminous drink, while others bicker endlessly about which concoction has the most caffeine. (Answer: It kind of depends.)
Which do you prefer: caffè Americano or just a regular ol' cuppa joe? Tell us in the comments.
Erin Meister trains baristas for North Carolina-based Counter Culture Coffee and sporadically maintains the blog Meet the Press Pot from her home in New York City. This is part of a series for the caffeine-addicted.
