Caffè napoletano

1. Pay first at the cash desk (cassa), saying what you want: "un caffè", "due caffè".
2. Take the receipt to the counter and put it down. Say it again to the barista.
3. Drink it standing. Sitting at a table, where there is table service, costs more. At historic cafés such as Gambrinus on Piazza del Plebiscito, check both prices on the list before you sit.
4. Specify: amaro (no sugar), macchiato (a dash of milk), ristretto (shorter), lungo (longer). A cappuccino after lunch will not be refused, but it marks you out.

The caffè sospeso, "suspended coffee", began in the working-class cafés of Naples: a customer who had a stroke of luck paid for two coffees and drank one, and the second waited on account for someone who asked if there was a sospeso. Accounts disagree on how alive the custom is; one 2008 report found three bars where no one had seen it for 15 years. In December 2011 the city declared an annual Suspended Coffee Day. The idea has spread to pizza: Sorbillo on Via dei Tribunali lists a "pizza sospesa" at €5.

Before the moka pot, homes in Naples made coffee in the cuccumella, the Neapolitan flip pot. Water heats in the lower chamber; you flip the pot and the water drips through the grounds by gravity, not pressure. A small paper cone, the cuppetiello, goes over the spout to keep the aroma in while it drips, which can take ten minutes or more. It was invented in 1819 by a Parisian tinsmith, Jean-Louis Morize, and adopted so thoroughly that Italians named it after Naples. Look for them in kitchen shops around San Gregorio Armeno and the old town.

Breakfast is an espresso and a sfogliatella (about €2) at the counter. After lunch, an espresso with a babà. At the end of dinner, restaurants offer limoncello or an amaro, not a second coffee.