Italy · Turin
Espresso, drinking chocolate and cream in three unstirred layers, in a small glass. Turin, since the eighteenth century.
The bicerin has been served in Turin since the eighteenth century — Caffè Al Bicerin, opposite the Santuario della Consolata, has been making it since 1763 — and the city protects the recipe as a traditional speciality.
Three layers in a small handled glass: thick drinking chocolate at the bottom, espresso in the middle, unwhipped cream floating on top. Unstirred.
You drink through the layers, so the experience changes as you go: cool cream first, then coffee, then the thick chocolate at the end. Stirring it produces a perfectly nice mocha and destroys the point.
The chocolate is proper drinking chocolate — melted chocolate thickened, not cocoa powder in milk. It is dense enough to stay at the bottom.
The espresso is poured over it gently.
The cream is liquid, not whipped, poured over the back of a spoon so it settles on the surface.
The density gradient does the rest.
Melt 20 g of dark chocolate with a splash of milk into a thick, pourable paste. Put it in the base of a small glass. Pull a single espresso over it, gently. Pour a tablespoon of cold single cream over the back of a spoon.
The most common mistake is chocolate that is too thin, which lets the espresso punch through and mix.
Turin is a chocolate city — gianduja was invented there — and the bicerin belongs to that tradition as much as to coffee. Alexandre Dumas wrote admiringly about it, which the city has never stopped mentioning.
No. The three layers are the drink — you drink through them, so the first mouthful is cream, the last is chocolate, and the middle is coffee. Stirring makes a mocha.
Unwhipped cream is less dense than both the espresso and the chocolate, and pouring it gently over the back of a spoon keeps it as a distinct layer.
The equipment this actually requires — not a shopping list, the shortest route to doing it properly.
58 mm commercial portafilter · 3-way solenoid · steel body
A 58 mm commercial portafilter, a steel body and a three-way solenoid, in a machine cheap enough to modify. Nothing else at this price is still worth owning in fifteen years, and nothing else has this much of an aftermarket.
Best for: Someone who wants one espresso machine for the next fifteen years and does not mind learning it.
≈ $500 / £400 / 450 €
Double-walled borosilicate that keeps a drink hot and the outside cool, and shows the layers of a latte. Cheap enough to replace when one inevitably goes.
Best for: Espresso-based milk drinks, and anyone who likes seeing them.
