Hey coffee lovers! Have you heard of caffè d’orzo?
We may know orzo as the rice-shaped pasta you can use for all kinds of dishes, but in Italy they don’t know orzo that way. You can probably understand Minne’s (our colleague at Italiamo) confusion when someone recently told her they drank orzo every day instead of coffee. After processing fourteen errors, she naturally had to try that caffè d’orzo.
Orzo coffee—what is it?
Orzo has a lot in common with coffee: it looks like coffee, is prepared in a moka pot, and its smoky, roasted aroma also resembles coffee. But the taste is truly different. This coffee alternative is widely drunk in Italy as a caffeine-free coffee substitute. It is made from roasted barley, or orzo.
Caffè d’orzo
As well as drinking orzo at home, Italians can often order it in a coffee bar. You order a caffè d’orzo. Be aware that you pronounce the ‘z’ as ‘tsz’, otherwise there’s a very good chance you’ll only be understood after repeating yourself six times and using a lot of hand gestures. But once you’ve overcome the obstacle of ordering it, a cup of orzo is definitely worth trying. In terms of taste, orzo has nothing in common with decaf coffee—or actually, very little with coffee in general. The aroma is smoky and roasted, like coffee, but the taste is grain-like, and I mean that in the best possible way. Much like oat milk can be. Somehow, it tastes balanced and quite delicious. I’ve never tasted anything similar, which makes trying this drink worthwhile in any case.
Caffeine-free ‘coffee’
The biggest advantage of drinking caffè d’orzo instead of, or alongside, coffee is that in Italy it’s hardly an unknown phenomenon to end up trembling and jittery from the caffeine, combined with the sweet pasticceria eaten for breakfast, because of the amount of coffee consumed throughout the day. You could easily drink eighty cups of orzo without experiencing any negative effects.
Also read:
- Black coffee? You’re probably a dangerous lunatic
- Why do Italians drink so much coffee?
- Barbajada is Italy’s most delicious coffee—and here’s how to make it
Source: Italiamo
