Are you in Naples? Try - “un caffè sospeso” - a suspended coffee.

When you are in Naples order an usual, dense steaming hot espresso, smell the aroma, then knocked it back in two quick sips. But instead of paying for one coffee you will pay for two, leaving the receipt for the other with the bartender for a stranger to enjoy. That is a suspended coffee. The suspended coffee is a Neapolitan tradition that boomed during World War II and has found a revival in recent years during hard economic times. From Naples, by word of mouth and via the Internet, the gesture has spread throughout  Italy and around the world. In some places in Italy, the generosity now extends to the suspended pizza or sandwich, or even books. Naples is a city well known for its grit, beauty, chaos and crime. Despite those things, or perhaps because of them, its people are also famous for their solidarity in the face of hardship. No one here seems to know precisely when or how the suspended coffee began. But that it started here speaks to the small kindnesses that Italians are known for and also of the special place that coffee occupies in the culture. In a time of hardship, Italians can lack many things, but their coffee is not one of them. So it may be the most common item left at many cafes, as a gift, for people too poor to pay. More than 90 percent of Italian families drink coffee at home, and there is one coffee bar for every 490 Italians, according to a local organization that studies food and drinks. Espresso comes in seemingly infinite forms: “ristretto” (strong), “lungo” (more water), macchiato or “schiumato” (with a bit of milk or milk foam), or “corretto” (a kick of liquor added). Drinking one is an act rigorously performed standing at the counter for a few quick minutes. It naturally sets the passing hours of the day. It is both an intimate and a public ritual. Coffee consumption predated the unification of Italy by more than 200 years, so the rituals and traditions around it are very ancient. In Naples, coffee is a world in itself, both culturally and socially. Coffee is a ritual carried out in solidarity. That solidarity is spreading. In 2010, an ensemble of small Italian cultural festivals gave form to the tradition of generosity by creating the Suspended Coffee Network. The purpose was to weather the severe cuts to the state cultural budgets by organizing and promoting their own activities together. But it also started solidarity initiatives for those in need. Encouraging a donated coffee was one of them. Now, across Italy, the bars that have joined the network display the suspended coffee label in their windows. In participating coffee bars, customers might toss receipts in an unused coffee pot on the counter, where the needy can pull them out and use them. In others, customers pay in advance for an extra coffee, and the cafe keeps a list or hangs the receipts in the shop window.