Tough economic times and growing poverty in much of Europe are reviving a humble tradition that began some one-hundred years ago in the Italian city of Naples. It’s called caffè sospeso — “suspended coffee”: A customer pays in advance for a person who cannot afford a cup of coffee.
The barista would keep a log, and when someone popped his head in the doorway of the cafe and asked, “Is there anything suspended?” the barista would nod and serve him a cup of coffee … for free.
It’s an elegant way to show generosity: an act of charity in which donors and recipients never meet each other, the donor doesn’t show off and the recipient doesn’t have to show gratitude.
The practice is now spreading to other crisis-ravaged parts of Europe.
In Bulgaria, the European Union’s poorest country, where several desperate people have set themselves on fire in recent months, more than 150 cafes have joined an initiative modeled on the Neapolitan “suspended coffee” tradition.
In crisis-wracked Spain, a young man from Barcelona, Gonzalo Sapina, in a few short weeks started a network called Cafes Pendientes (“pending coffees”) and promoted the initiative among numerous coffee shops.
In France, several cafes now carry the logo “cafe en attente” (“waiting coffee”).
And there is even a site that lists establishments that have joined the “suspended coffee” initiative — the countries range from the U.K. and Ireland and Hungary to Australia and Canada.
The prepaid cup of coffee has become a symbol of grass-roots social solidarity at a time of mounting poverty in what, until recently, were affluent Western societies.
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