Morning coffee is the ritual that enables us to retrieve consciousness (or at least part of it) and shake off the lethargy that routine seems to want to trap us in. Midday coffee prevents us from falling asleep and the in-betweens are prepared and drunk almost out of inertia. We can perhaps view coffee as one of the more subtle markers of time.
I’ve always been intrigued by coffee and as a child would often convince my grandma to make me some when my mother wasn’t present. I think I was amazed by how good it tasted despite being bitter. It made me feel adult, sophisticated and appreciative of time off from everything else. Drinking coffee was a brief instant where doing nothing was acceptable and, if anything, mandatory.
As an Italian, others tend to automatically assume my familiarity with coffee, in all its variations and nuances. And this is justified, to a certain degree. Culturally speaking, the scented drink is ubiquitous in the country, and yet its traditions stay true to regional roots. This is why, despite spending 15 years in Ascoli, Marche, I had never heard of caffè sospeso, a southern practice that consists of paying for a cup of coffee that can be later consumed by a stranger. The heart of the movement is found in Napoli, yet so embedded is its seemingly eternal presence in Neapolitan culture, that it cannot be traced back to a precise starting point. Despite the ambiguity of its origins, we know that the movement boomed in parallel to the Italian Unification in 1861, thus representing the zeitgeist of newly born togetherness. Indeed, caffè sospeso, or ‘suspended coffee’, is intrinsically informed by the creativity that closely informs the dialect and habits of the Neapolitan people. It is their love for symbolism that elegantly employs the word ‘sospeso’ as a way of understanding that a cup of coffee, paid for and due to be received by a stranger, is waiting to be captured, suspended in the air. Avoiding reference to the unspoken ‘paid for’ retains the romanticism and mystery of the gesture, erasing any potential for transactional commodification. The casual magic of ‘suspended coffee’ lies thus in its ability to embody solidarity, bridging inequality rather than highlighting it. It speaks of a Neapolitan identity that is not individualised but shared, teeming with life and history.
"A cup of coffee, paid for and due to be received by a stranger, is waiting to be captured, suspended in the air"
There’s a psychological side to the movement too, more specifically the behavioural evidence of the irrational prosocial. Whoever pays for a coffee they won't consume will not be rewarded for their act of altruism. They will never get to meet the other stranger, especially if not a recurrent customer. ‘Suspended coffee’ is an emotion-led mindset that can lead to fundamental acts of kindness which underlie religious superstition.
D’Isanto and Di Nartino’s pioneering investigation deserves mention here, where they explored how contextual factors such as Napoli’s socio-economic hardship grounded and motivated the continuation of the ‘suspended coffee’ tradition. But there’s another cultural habit that influenced the desire to buy that extra espresso. Writer Pazzaglia (2004) reminds us of the inevitable disputes that emerge when the bill approaches an Italian table. The conviviality of the Italian spirit means it can be confusing to remember who ordered and shared what, resulting in bills being overpaid. The excess amount would be used to pay for a hot drink, dedicated to the next stranger passing by.
The simplicity of ‘suspended coffee’ is perhaps what stopped me from noticing I was inadvertently reproducing the Neapolitan practice. Being an avid lover and loyal consumer of pocket coffees (literal espresso shots that can fit in pockets!) I always make sure to have spare ones for friends who are unjustly oblivious to the caffeinated treats. And sure, it might not bear the same impact as a hot drink does to a potentially less fortunate stranger, but the Italian desire for connection remains.