Italy Caffe Napoletano

Caffè napoletano is coffee made the Neapolitan way: a very dark roast brewed in a flip drip pot called a cuccumella. The result is clean, sweet and aromatic, with a smooth aftertaste that flatters chocolate and spice notes.

Origin & Story

The cuccumella, or napoletana, is a coffee pot with a trick. Water is boiled in the lower chamber, and when steam rises from the small hole, you flip the whole pot over, so the water drips down through the coffee into the chamber that is now below. It is a gravity brewer: unlike a moka pot, it uses no steam pressure, and the drip can take five to ten minutes.

It was invented in 1819 in Paris by a tinsmith and lampmaker named Jean-Louis Morize. It was first made of copper, and of aluminum from 1886. In Naples a small paper cone, the cuppetiello, goes over the spout while the coffee drips, to keep the aroma in.

Naples has a coffee culture all its own, and it is the home of the caffè sospeso, the suspended coffee. A customer pays for two coffees and drinks one, leaving the other suspended for someone who comes in later and cannot afford it. The custom began in the working-class cafés of Naples in the late 1800s, boomed during the Second World War, and was revived after the 2008 recession.

Neapolitan coffee is dark. The gentle, gravity-fed brew keeps the aroma and gives a clean, sweet cup without the harshness that pressure can draw from a dark roast. For the flip pot use a medium grind, a little coarser than for a moka pot, and water at about 92 to 94°C.

Fill the lower chamber with hot water to the small hole, using about 200 ml for 18 g of coffee. Heat gently until a bead of steam or water shows at the hole, flip the pot, and let it drip for five to ten minutes. Serve in small cups.

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