Enjoy The Most Popular Italian Coffee At Home

ByBeppe Castro

If you want to enjoy the most popular Italian coffee at home, it is easy with our guide to the amazing tastes of Italy. I wrote about our history with amazing Italian coffee in an earlier post, and I hope you will take a few minutes to read that first for context.

We have been passionate about the most popular Italian coffee for a long time and the reasons go beyond the taste, but they also include the Italian coffee cultural and its importance here in Italy. Since moving to Rome, it is even more obvious that coffee is an essential part of everyday life.

Italian Coffee At Home - Sanity

There is an almost unlimited number of coffee roasters in Italy and they range from small artisan roasters to huge international companies, like Illy and Lavazza, that are known worldwide for their delicious coffee.

These Italian coffees were sold on our website where we tasted/tested everything we sold to make sure it was something we would also drink, and not just sell. That said, this is a very short list, even including My previous article about the best Italian coffee, so when you come to Italy you should take advantage of the many opportunities for you to tuck into a bar and taste one of these regional, or sometimes national, delights.

Italian Coffee At Home - Lavazza

One Of The Most Popular Italian Coffee Makers Is Lavazza From Torino

This is an example of one of the huge roasters in Italy. In 1895, Luigi Lavazza, a 26-year-old young man of humble origins, opened the first Lavazza Drogheria (more like a general store) on via San Tommaso in Turin. In 1955 Emilio Lavazza, Luigi’s nephew, joined the company bringing with him several innovative ideas, including the slogan still famous today “Lavazza, heaven in the cup”. Lavazza today is a brand known all over the world. Lavazza has over 4 thousand employees and in 2017 revenues exceeded €2 billion.

Caffè Trombetta Is A Rome Tradition

In 1890, Vittorio Trombetta opened his coffee roasting company with the sale of loose coffee, in via Marsala, next to the Termini station. It was his way of welcoming those who arrived in the capital, offering the opportunity to recover after a long journey with an excellent coffee. Today Caffè Trombetta S.p.A. is still a family-run company, and a leading player in the coffee market in Italy and in the main foreign markets.

Italian Coffee At Home - Espresso

Caffè Vergnano Is Also From Torino

Caffè Vergnano is considered the oldest national coffee producer among the large roasters. The company was founded in 1882 by Domenico Vergnano. It was a small drogheria (more like a general store) in the Turin hills. Since 2000, the company has started the project of expanding its products and the brand through the coffee shops that are now found all over the world. In 2017 there were already more than 130 cafés thanks to the collaboration with Eataly, which allowed Caffè Vergnano to be sold in Toronto, New York, Rome, Milan, Chicago, Los Angeles, São Paulo, Istanbul, Seoul, Tokyo and Moscow.

Italian Coffee At Home - Caffè Mauro

Italian Coffee Company Caffè Mauro From Reggio Calabria

This is a company that specializes in the production of coffee, founded in 1949 in Reggio Calabria, from the ashes of the family business of Demetrio Mauro created in 1930, which imported coffee from the African colonies with the purchase of a used 40-ton ship, the Salvatore Padre. This origin story crosses a tumultuous time for Italy, from pre-World War II Fascist Italy with colonies in Africa, like: Somalia, Libya and Eritrea, to the post war period of rebuilding.

Mauro Caffè grew 7x, becoming the second largest Italian coffee producer in the 1990s thanks to two key factors: it was among the first companies to sell its products in a drogheria (more like a general store) with packaged coffee, and it created a large distribution network in Italy.

Italian Coffee At Home - Morettino

Palermo’s Own Italian Coffee – Morettino

In 1920, the Morettino family’s passion for coffee was born in an old spice shop. Next to the chocolate, cocoa and spices from distant countries, Arturo Morettino roasted and sold his coffee to the neighbors, spreading the aroma of the exotic drink through the streets of the township. Morettino continued to grow over the decades with targeted and sustainable growth, always keeping the focus on the quality of its products following the 4 values of the company:

  • We love Coffee

  • We love Nature

  • We love Culture

  • We love Sicily.

Keep Tasting The Most Popular Coffee In Italy!

I’ve only lightly touched on the histories of these great coffee roasters, but I think you can see that there is an important history, built by one person or a family, with every one of these. There are also important political and historical elements that I hadn’t considered at first, but when Morettino describes and Caffè Mauro references the colonies in Africa there is a complexity with Fascism and colonization that adds more to the story. It’s a global story, not just Italian, but one that motivates me to learn more about the history of Italy that I never learned in my High School European Studies class many years ago. Also, I will keep enjoying the post popular Italian coffee as much as possible!

More Italian Coffee Experiences

If you are interested in learning more about the Italian coffee and the culture that embraces it, you should check out some of our other posts:

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