Wake Up and Drink the (Best) Coffee

This week’s Wall Street Journal featured a front-page (Marketplace) story about yet another David taking on the Starbucks Goliath. Italian coffee maker Illy-Caffe, a household word in Italy for decades, has announced plans to join forces with independent cafes across the U.S. in an effort to splash its name around amongst the coffee cognoscenti.

The story in a coffee bean shell: Illy signs an agreement with your favorite local café to provide them with espresso machines, cups, recipes and intensive training. In return, the café agrees to use only Illy Caffe for three years and broadcast that fact to the world via signs, logo gear and patio umbrellas.

 The WSJ muses that Illy’s efforts may seem “odd” given the fact that Starbucks has been closing stores and lowering prices on some drinks. Moreover, “There has also been a surge in lower-priced coffee competition from McDonald’s Corp. and Dunkin’ Brands,” the article continues. “On the other hand, world coffee consumption has been growing for the past five years, partly because young people are drinking more of it outside the home.”

I say hip-hip-hooray for Illy Caffe. I don’t know how successful this move will be from a financial standpoint, but I do know that consumers will be drinking far better coffee because of it. Much as I love the consistency of Starbucks products (a latte is a latte is a latte) and the fact that they provide espresso drinks in cities and towns formerly ruled by cheap drip coffee, I find Starbucks coffee mediocre. Moreover, I’m all in favor of giving local coffee shops and cafes a boost in business, something that, presumably, will happen if they join the Illy program.

I became an Illy fan years ago. Until then, I was a diehard whole bean person, intent of getting beans locally roasted and grinding them myself each morning. I still respect that approach, but I find that Illy produces a better shot of espresso than many locally roasted coffee and upscale purveyors such as Peet's and Tully's. It’s also easier to purchase (available in many supermarkets); and more convenient since you can have an unopened, vacuum-sealed can on hand for emergencies.

And, while we’re on the subject of a cup of joe.

 A few weeks ago, I was sitting at a wobbly sidewalk table in front of Sant' Eustachio Caffe in Rome, just a stone’s throw from the Pantheon. Like the name Illy, Sant' Eustchio is synonymous with coffee-taken-very-seriously. The company has been around since the 1930s and the café has always been wildly popular with locals and savvy tourists alike. (This photo is from a terrific Web site called RonInRome.com...don't leave for Rome without checking it out. In fact, don't drink another cappuccino without reading Ron's primer on the perfect cup of Italian coffee.)

We sat in the warm sunshine of a bright October day and sipped our intoxicatingly fragrant, smooth, intensely flavored cappuccinos and watched the non-stop show that is any Italian piazza. Inside the café, people stood four-deep at the stand-up bar, belting back thimblesful of espresso before hopping onto Vespas and into Smart Cars and zooming away.

While Illy is a vast world-wide operation these days, Sant Eustachio is still more of an artisan affair, with beans roasted in the back of the Rome café, and a far less extensive export operation. Both coffees cost somewhere between $13 and $15 for a can that weighs about 8.5 ounces. Sant’ Eustachio is available from Gustiamo.com, a sophisticated yet user-friendly Web site peddling hand-selected Italian food products. It’s also available at Amazon.com, but shopping at Amazon isn't nearly as delectable an experience as browsing Gustiamo.com.