Italy has a long love affair with coffee On International Coffee Day, a Google survey tells us which variants of the drink we prefer

In Italy, we clearly have an intimate and personal relationship with coffee. It rarely represents just a drink: it's the simplest suggestion for when we want to see someone without having to organise anything too demanding. It can be the occasion for a break that perhaps should last five minutes and then ends up lasting ten. It's a certainty, a love story that has been going on for decades.

In Naples, for example, Eduardo De Filippo immortalised the cuccumella in Questi fantasmi! — the coffee pot you flip halfway through brewing — along with the trick of the cuppetiello, the paper cone placed over the spout to keep the aroma from escaping. And still in Naples, the most generous custom the coffee cup has ever produced lives on: il caffè sospeso — the suspended coffee. At the counter, you pay for one extra, which waits there for someone who will walk in later and can't afford one.

Italians' favourite drink

Judging by the data shared by Google for International Coffee Day on the first of October, this is a relationship with no intention of fading. In 2026, coffee-related searches in Italy reached an all-time high, peaking in August. Espresso and cappuccino remain the most searched drinks and attract the greatest interest in the early hours of the morning.

Even more predictable, perhaps, is the result for the moka pot: Italy is the country that searches for it most in the world, with a volume double that of the Czech Republic, which ranks second. It's also somewhat ironic because, simple as it may seem, there are a billion variations of it and just as many versions of the right way to make it. For instance, some will tell you that the coffee should never be tamped down, while others insist the water must come precisely up to the valve.

Meanwhile, thanks to the influence of social media, preparations that have little to do with a simple espresso at the bar are beginning to appear in our searches, opening us up to new horizons. The flat white is the trendiest coffee-based drink of 2026, with 140% growth, accompanied by questions such as "what is a flat white", how it differs from a cappuccino, and the traditional recipe.

The curiosity doesn't stop there. Searches for café au lait are up 100% and those for filter coffee up 90%, while in the shopping basket, alongside coffee, oat milk is appearing more and more often. Among the preparations, cold brew also features, along with pumpkin spice, although the outright winner is the matcha latte.

Meanwhile, our kitchens are gradually transforming into little coffee shops: searches show interest in the best small filter coffee machines, in milk frothers, and in the right way to make an Americano. At the same time, the great classics show no sign of giving way: after espresso and cappuccino, the ranking of most searched drinks includes caffè latte, iced coffee, and macchiato.

Our relationship with coffee seems to have enough room to hold both things at once: the familiar gesture and the desire to try something new. Despite a few novelties on the menu and plenty of choice, however, some people will go right on ordering their own classic drink of choice for the rest of their lives.