How Does Coffee Culture Differ Between Japan and Italy?
Japanese pour-over and Italian espresso are two distinct coffee systems. Japan favors very dark roasts poured slowly through styles such as Kono, Matsuya, and Volcano, all built to draw out rich dark-roast flavor. Italy's espresso tradition started at the port of Venice in the 16th century and moved through steam and lever machines before espresso became the base of the modern coffee menu.
The difference comes down to brewing intent. Japanese methods use gentle, deliberate pouring to build layered sweetness and depth from dark-roasted beans. Italian espresso pushes water through finely ground coffee under pressure for a small, concentrated shot. Drinks such as the Americano, latte, and cappuccino are all extensions of that espresso base, which is why coffee culture in each country shaped its equipment and daily habits so differently.
Coffee is one of the most beloved beverages in the world, and Japan and Italy have each developed distinctly different coffee systems. Japanese coffee is known for extremely dark roasts and gentle, delicate pouring techniques. The Kono style, Matsuya style, and Volcano style each have their own characteristics, all designed around how to extract rich dark-roast flavors. Italian coffee, on the other hand, began at the port of Venice in the 16th century, went through improvements with steam machines and lever machines, and ultimately pushed espresso to the global stage, becoming the core of the modern coffee system. Today, Front Street Coffee takes you through brewing methods, historical origins, and drinking habits to comprehensively sort out the characteristics and differences of these two major schools.
Coffee is a highly favored beverage around the world and one of the most consumed drinks globally. When it comes to dedication and obsession with coffee, Japan is undoubtedly a typical example, with a long-standing coffee culture and widely recognized professionalism among coffee craftsmen. As another major mainstream branch, Italian coffee also enjoys extremely high popularity. The Americano, latte, and cappuccino that everyone drinks daily are actually all extensions of espresso. Today, Front Street Coffee will give everyone a detailed look at these two major schools and see what characteristics each possesses.
When Japanese coffee is mentioned, what comes to many people's minds, besides the surface-black, oily, extremely dark-roasted beans, is that gentle and elegant pouring posture. Indeed, most of the pour-over pouring we commonly see today is relatively quick and bold, in order to obtain a cup of pour-over with clear layers in as short a time as possible. By contrast, Japanese brewing with slow pouring appears especially calm and delicate. Therefore, Front Street Coffee will next introduce several of the most representative brewing methods in Japanese coffee.
Kono Style Brewing
The Kono drip method was born in 1973. As the name suggests, it came from the Kono family, who founded the well-known Japanese coffee equipment brand "Kono." The Kono family had a particular fondness for rich dark-roasted coffee. Using the brewing effect of flannel cloth as a reference, they designed the Kono dripper. To make the result even richer, they further optimized the brewing method and ultimately developed the drip method, which shows just how obsessed they were with rich dark-roast flavors.
The reason this brewing method is called the drip method is mainly that during the initial pouring stage, hot water is not poured directly as usual. Instead, the water is allowed to fall slowly in a continuous stream of distinct droplets to extract the coffee. This extends the blooming time, allowing carbon dioxide in the coffee to be fully released, so that subsequent hot water can better bring out the coffee's flavor compounds.
Matsuya Style Brewing
Matsuya style brewing can be said to be a unique existence among Japanese brewing methods, because it has three very striking characteristics: an extremely long blooming time, an extremely high pouring position, and an ultra-concentrated coffee liquid that needs to be diluted with water.
The long blooming is to allow beans of different freshness to achieve consistent extraction efficiency; pouring from a very high position is to give the hot water an accurate temperature when it lands on the coffee bed even without a thermometer; and the ultra-concentrated coffee liquid is because the extraction efficiency is high enough that flavor compounds can be fully extracted without much hot water, so by raising the coffee-to-water ratio, a pot of high-concentration coffee liquid is obtained, which is finally diluted to your preferred strength using the bypass method.
Volcano Style Brewing
Volcano brewing is the most visually spectacular of these three methods. Because during brewing, the coffee bed continuously releases steam, creating a scene similar to a volcanic eruption—quite a spectacle!
Similarly, volcano brewing also requires blooming first to release gas, and then extracting flavor compounds. The difference is that during the extraction stage, the hot water is not poured all at once, but divided into several pours. Each time, water is poured in a small circle at the center of the dripper, lightly and in small amounts, with a 5-second interval before the next pour, until the target amount of water has all been poured.
During this process, we can see the coffee bed expand due to the pouring of hot water, then contract as the coffee liquid drains through, then expand again with another pour, then contract again as the coffee liquid drains through, and so on repeatedly. Because volcano brewing has higher extraction efficiency, the coffee-to-water ratio it uses is also relatively high, so the final coffee liquid is also a high-concentration one that needs to be diluted through bypass. (Friends who want to learn about volcano brewing can move on to this article → "Volcano Brewing")
However, no matter which of the above brewing methods is used, they are all more suitable for brewing dark-roasted coffee beans, because they were developed around how to extract rich dark-roast flavors. If you also prefer steady, rich, bitter coffee, you might as well try these Japanese brewing methods. I believe that with these brewing methods different from your daily routine, you will gain a uniquely distinctive experience.
Early Italian Coffee Culture
Compared with Japanese coffee culture, Italy's history of coffee drinking is much longer. Since 1580, coffee beans originally produced in Africa and the Middle East entered Italy through the port of Venice, and at first they were a beverage only the upper class could enjoy. Because it originated as a "Muslim drink" from the Middle East and Turkey, many Christian Italians called it the "devil's drink."
It was not until the early 17th century that Pope Clement VIII fell in love with this black drink and gave coffee a baptism, officially designating it as a Christian beverage and naming it the "drink of God." Soon after, in 1645, Rome opened Europe's first coffee house, also Italy's earliest shop specifically selling coffee. From then on, coffee spread rapidly throughout Italy.
The Italian contribution to coffee lies not only in taste, but even more in the development of equipment
In the early days, people used old-fashioned Turkish pots to brew coffee and then filtered it. With the arrival of the Industrial Revolution, everything seemed to pursue a fast pace, and Italians were no exception. In 1884, Angelo Moriondo successfully registered a patent in Turin, Italy, for a steam-powered machine used to make coffee. However, because this device depended entirely on steam, the temperature was difficult to control, often making the coffee burnt and bitter, so it was later modified many times by different people.
(Angelo Moriondo's Espresso Machine)
In the early 19th century, Milanese manufacturer Luigi Bezzara improved this patent and introduced the prototype of the world's first steam-pressure coffee machine. It not only had a detachable handle and a separable assembly head, but could also extract a cup of coffee in a short time using high pressure.
(Luigi Bezzera's Espresso Machine)
With the advent and application of the new machine, more and more Italians fell in love with the coffee quickly extracted by this machine. The term "espresso" was first included in an Italian dictionary around 1920, explained as: concentrated coffee made using a pressure machine or filter.
For people tasting this "quick coffee" for the first time at the time, it did not taste good, but after learning that it came from a method of quickly obtaining coffee through steam pressure, Italians seemed to be injected with adrenaline, constantly thinking about how to upgrade and modify this steam-powered coffee machine to make the coffee it produced taste better.
For example, a Milanese engineer named Achille Gaggia managed in 1938 to add a lever to the coffee machine, which could forcibly increase the water pressure sharply from 1.5 bar to 9 bar. This not only gave the coffee a layer of dark brown "crema," but also quantified the volume of the solution, making coffee quality more stable.
In this way, thanks to people's refinement and popularization of these machines, coffee-making methods underwent earth-shaking changes. High speed and convenience also became new indicators of service in every coffee shop, and that small cup of espresso began to evolve into the foundational core of today's modern coffee system.
About Italians' Strong Taste
When espresso reached its final form, coffee culture had also kept pace. Compared with many other countries, Italian coffee shops emphasize an atmosphere of high efficiency and fast pace, and this perfectly matches the small cup size of espresso, allowing people coming and going to enjoy it quickly, then chat a few words with acquaintances before leaving. Stopping by a coffee shop for an espresso during a brief moment of leisure can be said to be one of Italians' most deep-rooted habits.
Walking into a coffee shop, they will directly tell the barista, "A single espresso." The majority are mainly dark-roasted and bitter, usually with robusta added to make the crema richer. Some people add a little raw sugar and stir before tasting, then drink it in one go, which is very satisfying. A cup of espresso in Italy usually costs only 1 euro, equivalent to 7 RMB, making it a very everyday beverage.
You should know that in the eyes of most Italians, only espresso is "real" coffee, because compared with lighter-roasted specialty coffees that emphasize single origins, they are more accustomed to flavors that are rich, full-bodied, heavy in mouthfeel, and even bitter. It is said that in Italians' beliefs, coffee is "digestive" and has nothing to do with refreshment, so after every meal, if there is no cup of espresso, they feel as if something is missing.
It is not hard to see that the reason Italians are so fanatical about espresso is that they are loyal to their own cultural roots. As Front Street Coffee mentioned above, Italy invented the espresso machine, and this not only made the production of coffee drinks faster, but permanently changed the global coffee industry. Therefore, for the Italian people, espresso is an important part of national identity, and it also makes Italy appear different from the rest of the world.
So if you order an iced Americano in an Italian coffee shop, will you get beaten up?
Although most traditional Italians still stick to their drinking habits, as the Italian coffee system has become popular worldwide, coffee-drinking styles in many countries and regions have also developed their own schools. Out of respect for other people's dietary habits, when foreigners want an iced Americano, some local Italian baristas will also try their best to satisfy the needs of foreign tourists.
(espresso + ice cubes + water)
Of course, it cannot be ruled out that there are still many "diehards" who only serve espresso. When you ask them for an iced Americano, chances are you will get a "side-eye," and then they will bring over a combination like this. (Front Street Coffee is joking; any resemblance is purely coincidental.)
The above content is compiled by CoffeeHunters, a coffee news website.
