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Circling the globe with coffee customs

Operators bring the rich world of coffee to the United States. Sponsored by Gevalia.

Specialty coffee is fluent in Italian, the common tongue of the worldwide espresso boom. It also chats in Spanish, Japanese, Swedish, Greek and Turkish. The interplay of global cultures is enriching the coffee experience in America.

This summer, sultry temperatures are making Italian-style iced coffees like caffe shakerato — espresso rattled with ice in a cocktail shaker until frosty and foamy — veritable lifesavers. In fact, one out of five patrons orders a shakerato at the espresso bar of Eataly, the Italian food emporium in Chicago, reports Eataly assistant manager Billy Binns.

“It’s very delicious and it has an attractive cascading effect,” says Binns.

Eataly also cools parched patrons with iced cappuccino blended with milk and ice and garnished with dark chocolate shavings, and cremespresso, a slushy, spoonable espresso and milk concoction.

In Boston the new Ogawa Coffee shop exhibits the warm hospitality, unique specialty beverages and intricate latte art characteristic of Japanese coffee culture. It is the first international location for the Kyoto-based roaster, which has 36 shops in Japan.

The hope is that the new Boston shop will follow in the mold of coffee cafés in Japan as meeting places for groups to gather, relax and linger over friendly discussion, says Yoshinori Uda, president and chief executive of Ogawa Coffee USA.

Patrons are enjoying the flavorful Kyoto house blend of select beans from Guatemala, Brazil and Ethiopia, available exclusively in Kyoto and Boston. The shop also will be a teaching lab with retractable stadium seating for viewing demonstrations of meticulous brewing and highly detailed latte art. The latter is displayed on a cappuccino topped with a foamy homage entitled “A Willow Tree and Cherry Blossom of Japan,” the winning design by Haruna Murayama, Ogawa Coffee’s 2010 World Latte Art Champion barista and trainer. It is part of a pairing called Signature Drink, along with a martini glass filled with chilled, foamed espresso.

Also unique is the Single Origin Trio, a flight of single-sourced coffee shots offered for side-by-side comparison.

At Area Four, a restaurant and café in Cambridge, Mass., the online café menu includes the Italianesque bicerin, espresso with chocolate sauce and whipped cream; and Americano, espresso diluted with hot water to approximate U.S. drip coffee. Other global coffee styles are cortado, a Spanish take on espresso cut with a little steamed milk, and the Flat White of Australian fame — espresso crowned with velvety milk foam.

Coffee speaks Swedish, too. Fika, a chain of 17 coffee and pastry shops in New York City, has introduced the Swedish concept of fika to the Big Apple. More than a mere coffee break, fika is a ritual that melds coffee with conversation and sweet or savory bites. The shops tempt patrons with food offerings ranging from house-cured salmon to artisan chocolates and pastry.

As a counterpoint to the rush-rush scene of many U.S. coffee shops, some operators are promoting the relaxed and social ethos of Eastern European and Middle Eastern cultures that enjoy traditional boiled, unfiltered coffee.

For instance, at Death Ave, a Greek restaurant and coffee bar in New York City, restaurateur Michael Tzezailidis is reviving traditional Hellenic coffee brewing rarely practiced even in Greece today.

“When you have an espresso shot you just put it down, but Hellenic coffee is something you enjoy over a conversation,” Tzezailidis says. “It would not be unusual to spend 45 minutes over it.”

The beverage was originally brewed by slowly heating very finely ground coffee and water in small pots called briki in the hot sand around a campfire, creating a distinctive bitter, earthy taste. The briki at Death Ave are heated in a Greek-made platform filled with sand. Customers must wait a few moments for the fine grounds to settle to the bottom of the cup before sipping the thick elixir.

New Orleans-based barista and coffee consultant Turgay Yildizli is on a mission to popularize the authentic coffee of his homeland, Turkey. The national brew, like Hellenic coffee, is boiled in small pots, unfiltered and savored while socializing.

“The quality is very high when you use good coffee, good water and proper brewing technique,” notes Yildizli, who says he plans to open a microroastery in New Orleans serving espresso, pour-over and specialty Turkish coffee.

“Turkish coffee is delicious and it has a very deep tradition and ritual behind it,” says Yildizli. “And it is not more difficult to make than manual pour-over coffee.”

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