Coffee machine threat to Italy's baristas

Italy's traditional coffee bars are under threat from an invasion of self-service coffee machines in offices, universities and train stations. Half a million have been installed over the last year, and "Number 64" is replacing time-honoured orders like con schiuma, doppio, lungo and corretto. The newspaper La Repubblica points out it takes four minutes to get coffee from a machine, compared to eight minutes in a bar. Machine coffee is also cheaper. But Carlo Odello, of the Italian National Institute for Espresso in Brescia, insisted the skill of a barista could not be replicated by a machine. The Observer 16/10/05 page 24