There are about forty different kinds of coffee, but the most widespread and best known are without doubt Arabica from Central America, with its delicately flavoured beans and low caffeine content and Canefora, known as Robusta, from Central Africa.

Coffee plants love temperate, hot climates and need well-watered soil with lots of rain. Today they are cultivated all over the geographical area between the tropics in America, Africa and Asia. The first to discover the properties of coffee werw very probably Ethiopian shepherds, about a thousand years ago. They soon realised that the beans needed rosting and grinding to give a good coffee. The first coffee workshops were opened at the beginning of the 16th Century in Istanbul where the method used for making the drink was to boll the powder in water.
Over time the vast spread of coffee trough different cultures has introduced numerous habits into its preparation, each one of which represents the passion for this magic fruit, appreciated and loved over and beyond the boundaries of time in place.

There is Arabic coffee, prepared by putting a long handied container with a small spout onto burning coals, and boiling together water, coffee powder and sugar. The celebrated traditional Neapolitan recipe, where the coffee pot is turned upside down with coffee powder inside its performated central part. And then there is the American method, the Indian one and the Indonesian one, but Italy is the home of espresso coffee, an elaborate and refined preparation method that aims at enhancing the intense flavour of the coffee; its numerous variations such as "ristretto" (strong), "lungo" (weaker), "macchiato" (with a splash of frothy milk), "corretto" (with a dash of alcohol) and finally the famous "cappuccino" have contributed to spreading this drink all over the world, adapting it to a wide range of tastes and moments for drinking it.

As many different traditions as there are diffrent populations: distant cultures brought together by the daily ritual of drinking coffee. Fast and furious at the bar round the corner, alone or in company, relaxing after dinner or in the office corridor: the flavour and the magic aroma of coffee accompanies us at length during our day, representing one of the most pleasurable and irreplaceble habits.