Italy spent years mocking Greece for putting espresso on ice. Now Italian cafes are serving their own version of it ever...

Italy spent years mocking Greece for putting espresso on ice. Now Italian cafes are serving their own version of it everywhere. The freddo espresso was invented in Greece in 1991 by a man named Giannis Iosifidis, at a cafe called Kafea Terra. He was trying to sell more espresso during the summer months, when nobody wanted a hot shot of coffee. His solution was to shake fresh espresso straight from the machine with ice, creating the microbubbles and velvety texture that Greeks have been drinking ever since. The science behind it matters. When hot espresso hits ice and gets shaken hard, rapid thermal shock combined with the mechanical aeration produces tiny stable bubbles that reduce acidity and lock in aroma, without watering down the drink. The result is smoother, creamier, and more drinkable than simply pouring espresso over ice. What Italy now serves is called the caffè shakerato, a cocktail-shaker version of the same idea. Espresso is shaken with ice and sugar or syrup, then strained into a martini glass. The technique is different but the concept is identical: hot espresso, instant chill, aggressive agitation. According to Coffee Guru, the foam is the whole point of the drink, with shaking forcing air into the coffee and sugar increasing viscosity enough to hold the froth together as the glass reaches the table. Italian baristas are even being coached to shake harder than feels reasonable, because the foam comes from ice colliding with liquid at speed. Italy acknowledged the caffè shakerato existed since the 1990s but paid it little attention until cold espresso drinks became a global phenomenon. Greece had already been doing this for over three decades by then. #FreddoEspresso #GreekCoffee #Greece