What Are the Differences Between Japanese Coffee and Italian Coffee | How Does Japanese Coffee Taste

Coffee is the most widely consumed drink in the world, and few nations have embraced it with as much devotion as Japan. Japanese coffee culture has a long history, and its craftspeople approach their work with remarkable seriousness. Italian coffee, the other great mainstream tradition, is just as famous and just as enduring. The Americano, latte, and cappuccino that so many of us drink every day all trace their roots back to espresso. Today FrontStreet Coffee takes a detailed look at these two schools of coffee and at what makes each of them distinctive.

Japanese Coffee Culture

When people think of Japanese coffee, two images usually come to mind: dark, oily, extremely dark-roasted beans, and an unhurried, almost gentle way of pouring water. It is true that most of the pour-over techniques we use today are turbulent and somewhat "coarse," because that is the fastest route to a richly layered cup. The slow pouring of Japanese brewing stands in sharp contrast, and it looks far more elegant and refined. So today FrontStreet Coffee would like to share a few of the most classic methods in Japanese coffee.

Kono-style Brewing

Kono-style drip brewing dates back to 1973. As the name suggests, it was invented by the Kono family, founders of the renowned Japanese coffee equipment maker Kono. The family had a particular love for mellow, dark-roasted coffee, so they took the brewing behaviour of flannel filter cloth as their reference and designed the Kono dripper. Then, to make the resulting cup even richer, they refined the technique further and developed drip brewing, a sign of just how deep their affection for full-bodied dark roast ran.

The method is called "drip" largely because of the way the water first enters the coffee bed. Instead of a normal stream of hot water, the opening phase is a series of distinct, continuous droplets that keep dripping onto the grounds. This stretches out the blooming time, allowing the carbon dioxide in the coffee to escape completely, so the hot water that follows can extract the flavour compounds far more effectively.

Matsumoto-style Brewing

Matsumoto-style brewing is a unique representative of Japanese technique, and it has three striking characteristics: an ultra-long bloom, an ultra-high pouring height, and a super-concentrated brew that is meant to be diluted with water.

The extended bloom ensures that beans of different freshness levels extract at the same rate. Pouring from an extremely high position gives the water a precise temperature without any need for a thermometer. And the super-concentrated liquid exists because, under such high extraction efficiency, the flavour compounds do not need much water to be released; by tightening the coffee-to-water ratio, you end up with a potent brew that can then be diluted to taste through bypass.

Volcano-style Brewing

Volcano brewing is the most visually spectacular of the three. As it proceeds, the coffee bed keeps releasing gas and the whole thing resembles a volcanic eruption. It is a magnificent sight.

Here too, you bloom and degas first, then extract the flavour compounds. The difference lies in the extraction phase: the hot water is not poured in one go but split into several segments. Each pour is a small circle around the centre of the dripper, light and delicate, followed by a five-second pause before the next segment, until the target water volume is reached.

As this unfolds, you can watch the coffee bed swell with each pour and then contract as the liquid drains through, swelling and contracting again and again in a steady cycle. Because volcano brewing extracts so efficiently, it also uses a relatively tight coffee-to-water ratio, so the finished liquid is highly concentrated and needs to be diluted through bypass. (Readers who are curious about volcano brewing can take a look at this article, "Volcano Brewing.")

Whatever method you choose, all of the above suit dark-roasted coffee best, because each one was developed around the question of how to extract a rich, dark-roasted cup. If you enjoy deep, mellow, bitter coffee, these Japanese techniques are well worth trying. With their departure from the usual approach, they should give you a genuinely different experience.

Early Italian Coffee Culture

Italy's coffee-drinking history is far longer than Japan's. As early as 1580, coffee beans native to Africa and the Middle East reached Italy through the port of Venice. At first it was a drink only the upper class enjoyed. Because it was a "Muslim drink" with roots in the Middle East and Turkey, many Christian Italians called it "the devil's beverage."

Everything changed in the early 17th century, when Archbishop Clement VIII fell in love with the dark liquid. He gave coffee a baptism, officially declared it a Christian drink, and renamed it "God's beverage." Not long afterwards, in 1645, Rome opened Europe's first coffee house, which was also Italy's earliest establishment devoted to selling coffee. From that point on coffee spread rapidly across the country.

Italian Contributions to Coffee: Flavour and Equipment Alike

In the early days, people brewed coffee in old-fashioned Turkish pots and then filtered it. With the Industrial Revolution, everything began to chase speed, and Italians were no exception. In 1884, Angelo Moriondo successfully registered a patent in Turin for a steam-powered coffee-making machine. Because the device relied entirely on steam, however, the temperature was hard to control and the coffee often came out burnt and bitter, so it was modified repeatedly by others over the years.

(Angelo Moriondo's espresso machine)

In the early 20th century, the Milanese manufacturer Luigi Bezzera improved on that patent and introduced the prototype of the world's first steam-pressure coffee machine. It had a detachable handle and a separable group head, and it could extract a cup of coffee in a very short time using high pressure.

(Luigi Bezzera's espresso machine)

With the arrival of these new machines, more and more Italians fell in love with the coffee they produced so quickly. The word "espresso" first appeared in Italian dictionaries around 1920, defined as concentrated coffee made with pressure machines or filters.

To those tasting this "fast coffee" for the first time, it did not necessarily taste good, but knowing it came from a technique built on steam pressure seemed to energise Italians. They kept thinking about how to upgrade and transform the steam-powered machine so that the coffee it produced would taste better.

The Milanese engineer Achille Gaggia, for example, managed to add a lever to the machine in 1938 that could force water pressure up from 1.5 bar to 9 bar. This not only gave the coffee a layer of dark brown "crema" but also made the volume of the brew quantifiable, so quality became far more consistent.

Thanks to this steady refinement and popularisation, coffee-making underwent an earth-shaking change. Speed and convenience became the new benchmarks for every coffee shop's service, and that small cup of espresso began to evolve into the foundation and core of the modern coffee system we know today.

About Italians' Strong Taste Preferences

As espresso reached its final form, coffee culture kept pace. Compared with many other countries, Italian coffee shops have an atmosphere of efficiency and speed that fits the small volume of an espresso perfectly: people come and go, enjoy it quickly, chat with acquaintances for a few moments, then leave. Ordering an espresso in the brief spare minutes of the day is one of the most deeply rooted Italian habits.

Walk into a bar and Italians will simply tell the barista to bring a single espresso. The taste is usually dominated by the bitterness of dark roast, and robusta is often added to make the crema richer. Some people stir in a little brown sugar before drinking it in one go, which is deeply satisfying. An espresso in Italy usually costs only 1 euro, roughly 7 yuan, making it a very popular drink.

It is worth noting that, in the eyes of most Italians, only espresso counts as "real" coffee. Compared with lighter roast levels and specialty coffees that emphasise single origins, they are far more attached to rich, full-bodied, thick, even bitter flavours. It is said that in the Italian view coffee is a "digestive aid" with nothing to do with staying awake, so after every meal, if there is no espresso, something feels missing.

It is not hard to see that Italians' enthusiasm for espresso comes from a loyalty to their cultural roots. As FrontStreet Coffee mentioned above, Italy invented the espresso machine, and that invention not only made coffee drinks faster to prepare but permanently changed the global coffee industry. For Italians, espresso is an important part of national identity, and it is what makes their country distinctive in the world.

Would You Get Hit for Ordering an Iced Americano in an Italian Coffee Shop?

Most traditional Italians still stick to their drinking habits, but as the Italian coffee system has spread worldwide, coffee-drinking methods in many countries and regions have developed their own styles. Out of respect for other people's dietary habits, when foreigners ask for an iced Americano, some Italian baristas will do their best to accommodate visiting tourists.

(espresso + ice cubes + water)

Of course, there are still plenty of "stubborn" places that serve only espresso. Ask them for an iced Americano and you will most likely get a roll of the eyes, followed by a combination just like this one. (FrontStreet Coffee is only joking here; any resemblance to reality is purely coincidental.)

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

If the Japanese methods above leave you craving a deep, mellow, bittersweet cup, FrontStreet Coffee's PWN Golden Mandheling is a natural match. Grown in Sumatra, it is given a medium-dark roast that keeps acidity low while building a full body layered with herbal, dark chocolate, and caramel notes, so it holds up beautifully in Kono, Matsumoto, and volcano-style brewing alike.

If you lean toward the lighter, brighter side of the pour-over tradition, reach for the classic Hario V60. FrontStreet Coffee's Yirgacheffe Gudingding, a washed Ethiopian coffee, offers clear citrus, berry, and floral notes with a green-tea sweetness, while FrontStreet Coffee's Ethiopia Huakui brings ripe tropical fruit and a juicy, low-bitterness cup. Both are easy to brew and easy to enjoy for anyone starting out with pour-over.