When visiting Italy, I noticed their coffee always tastes better than at home in America. How come that Italians make better tasting espresso? Why is Italian cappuccino always naturally sweet, mild and creamy? Coffee in Italy is always freshly roasted. Compared to America, Italy has 10 times more local coffee roasters and 20 times more coffee shops, making it easier to enjoy freshly roasted coffee almost everywhere. A fresh coffee roast in Italy is never more than 8 days old and thus always at its best or peak flavor.
Why does Italian espresso or macchiato taste better?
After discussing this question with our Italian coffee roasters, it turned out the answer to these questions is simple. Coffee in Italy is always freshly roasted. When Italians serve coffee in coffee shops, it has never been roasted more than 8 days ago and is therefore at its best or peak flavor.
Freshly roasted coffee is available everywhere in Italy. Compare that to coffee here at home and you’ll notice that in America, there is almost no freshly roasted coffee available. At a typical American super-market, coffee is normally roasted more than 120 days ago.
In short, you can say that American coffee is old and therefore often tastes bitter, stale, acidic or burnt. That is also the reason why Americans need more extra sugar, artificial sweeteners or milk-fat in their coffee. They need all these additional ingredients to mask the oldness of the typical American coffee roast. Now you understand why Italian espresso tastes so much better.
How do Italians manage to always drink fresh roasted coffee?
Once you understand that Italians drink their espresso freshly roasted, the logical next question is how Italians manage to get a fresh roasted coffee anywhere? According to the Specialty Coffee Association of Italy, there are close to 5,000 coffee roasters in Italy and more than 122,000 Â coffee shops. That means that every small, Italian village of 12,000 people has their own local coffee roaster, roasting coffee in small batches for the village only.
In Italy, there is a coffee shop for every 500 people. With so many local coffee roasters, coffee gets roasted on demand only and never waits around in packaging for more than 8 days before it gets brewed and consumed. With so many local coffee roasters and coffee shops, you can imagine that nobody is served old, stale or bitter coffee. If an Italian coffee shop would serve an espresso that is roasted more than eight days ago, it would quickly go out of business. There simply is nobody in Italy, who would serve anything but freshly roasted espresso.
The availability of fresh roasted coffee everywhere is why Italian espresso is naturally sweet instead of bitter, mild instead of acidic and creamy instead of in need of artificial flavor or additional milk-fat.
Compare the large amount of local Italian coffee roasters and coffee shops to the limited amount of local coffee roasters and coffee shops in America and it quickly becomes clear why it is so difficult to get a fresh roasted coffee in America.
According to the coffee roaster maps of CoffeeBeaned, there are about 2,000 coffee roasters in America, which roughly translates to one coffee roaster for every 180,000 Americans. In comparison to Italy, that means America has ten times less coffee roasters. No wonder it is very hard to get any coffee roaster to roast for you on demand, let alone to roast fresh coffee for your coffee maker at home.
Although it seems that coffee shops are everywhere in America, a typical coffee shop in the USA serves 10,000 Americans, whereas a typical Italian coffee shop serves only 500 Italians. A typical American coffee shop is 20 times bigger than its Italian counterpart. Having to serve smaller crowds, it is therefore much easier for Italians to serve fresh coffee, especially when  Italians get their fresh roast from a local Italian coffee roaster. As American coffee shops have to serve 20 times more people, it is impossible to serve freshly roasted coffee. Instead, the largest American shop chains purchase their coffee from large industrial roasters and the coffee often travels for more than 28 days before it can be served.
At Peak Flavor Coffee, we are dedicated to roast the best Italian coffee roast, made in America. That is why we roast fresh, specifically for your home coffee maker. We roast in individual, small batches on demand only. Just for you. And we promise to deliver your order to your door within 8 days of the roasting date, so you can enjoy coffee at its best or peak flavor. Try and taste the difference for yourself for at Peak Flavor Coffee. And discover why Peak Flavor Coffee is naturally sweet instead of bitter. Mild instead of acidic. And creamy instead of in need of additional flavors.
In summary, to serve better tasting coffee, Italy has better coffee infrastructure with significantly more coffee shops, who get their coffee from small, local Italian coffee roasters. Local Italian roasters in turn roast coffee in small batches on demand. Italy's coffee shops and coffee roasters serve 20 times less people, so the coffee the time between roasting and drinking coffee is never more than 8 days. On day eight after roasting is when coffee reaches its best or peak flavor. This explains why coffee in Italy is always freshly roasted. It also explains why Italian espresso tastes best.
Coffee hugs
