Italy's first Starbucks coffee shop opened to the public last week, and has to have inspired any customers already familiar with the American coffee chain to have asked the headline question.
It's not just the fancy design, housed in a building that used to be a post office and stock exchange. It's the roasted-on-premises beans. It's the crockery cups (do they write names on them?). It's the bread being baked in another part of the store. It's the affogato station where liquid nitrogen is used to produce a sort of instant ice cream. And more.
Starbucks chairman Howard Schultz has long claimed that a trip to Milan and the discovery of its coffee culture is what led him and his partners to start the Seattle-based coffee giant. But this new venture seems a very long way from their previous interpretation of that heritage.
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