Abbi DeWall

Ciao! My name is Abbi DeWall, and I am a rising junior studying advertising from Dallas, Texas. My love for coffee has taken me to many places, and being in Italy has inspired me to write my article! Arrivederci!

Summer Sun and Italian Java

Today, I committed an Italian sin. It is a well-known fact that Italians drink coffee hot every day of the week, no matter the time or place. However, in the middle of a day like June 22, when the sun is high in the sky and the shade is little to none, it is hard to bring oneself to buy a steaming hot espresso.

As my skin was melting off my body under the Arezzo sun, I grabbed a friend and we trudged to one of Arezzo’s few coffee shops offering iced lattes, Caffè Pascucci. My saving grace was just a few steps away as I peeked in the coffee shop on the corner and looked at the welcoming environment through floor to ceiling windows. Inside, I was met by a kind barista who joyfully took my order of a small, iced, decaf, caramel latte in broken Italian and quickly got to work making the cure to a near heatstroke.

Meanwhile, I glanced around at the four walls of the shop: two of them were lined with bags upon bags of different coffees in a variety of flavors I couldn’t translate. On another, there was a glass case full of mouth-watering Italian pastries.

Above it was a neglected and dark TV meant to be a menu. Additionally, a unique contraption with copper pipes and four glass cylinders was mounted on the wall. It was an “Azomico,” a unique Italian system designed to preserve coffee beans using nitrogen to prevent dangerous oxidation of the beans. Clearly, Caffè Pascucci takes their coffee seriously.

Throughout the shop, you can get a perfect sense of what life is like as an Italian on their lunch break in dire need of a pick-me-up espresso. The open door and natural sunlight keep you in the European environment while the aroma of coffee grinds reminds you of the energy to come. On the patio, Caffè Pascucci does not fail to make your day brighter inside and outside with plenty of seating in front of the hustle and bustle of Arezzo life.

I tried to soak all of these attributes in when I received my drink on a wooden platter seemingly meant for a more exclusive coffeehouse. Caffè Pascucci is an international brand with 40 shops across four continents yet does not fail to make you feel at home.

My drink was extremely sugary with a layer of caramel sauce at the bottom. Through my dried noodle straw, I could taste the sweet, creamy milk with soft undertones of chestnut coffee. It was the sweetest way to stave off the stubborn summer heat and carry me into the streets of Arezzo smiling wide.