The Best Thing I Found in Italy

Pocket Coffee!

I was recently incredibly blessed to take a trip to Rome in the middle of the work week. It was a bit of a whirlwind to take a five day trip leaving on a Tuesday evening for an extended redeye flight to Paris and on to Rome, but so completely worth it. We got to go because my incredible wife Ellie is a world renowned orthodontist and had a conference to attend in Rome which is impressive as hell. Talk about punching.

I have been to Rome before, about 10 years ago, and I was not that impressed. Yes, so much history, but I came from Florence, and the vibe is way different. Florence is slow and methodical and small, and Rome is bustling and touristy and active. It can be a bit intimidating to a young traveler who has previously done a lot of trips with parents as guides. This time however, we were there in the off season, which meant smaller crowds and less stress. I thoroughly enjoyed Rome this time around. I think I’m a bit less afraid of Europe now than I was. I grew up thinking it was all pickpockets and scammers, and now I trust Europeans at least as much as the strangers in the US.

When we woke up the first morning, I jumped right into Italian culture, or at least as much as you can get from like six YouTube shorts about how to order coffee and ten good words or phrases to know, which is a medium amount I guess. I drank as much espresso as I could while still being able to sleep at night (which for a five-day trip I miscalculated more than once), and looked for sandwich shops, pasta and gelato.

While this isn’t a travel blog, it is about coffee. Something I discovered a bit too late in the trip on day four was pocket coffee, and I only found the decaf. If you haven’t heard of Pocket Coffee, you’re probably not alone. I had heard it mentioned before, but didn’t quite understand. Pocket Coffee is really just candy. It’s a little chocolate with a liquid center that is marketed as “espresso.” It’s absolutely the most liquid a “liquid center” has ever been. It will spill everywhere if you don’t treat it like a little explosive or like you’re biting the top off of a thin chocolate cup. I think this is very intentional to give off the idea that it is espresso and not candy, but again, it is candy.

Pocket Coffee has a notably short Wikipedia page, but it’s been around since 1968, when William Salice of the Ferrero company wanted to market energizing chocolate to truck drivers in Italy. Michele Ferrero conceived the slogan, "the energy of chocolate and the charge of coffee,” which is a bit boring for how great this stuff is. I did learn from their website that Ferrero only makes these November to April and then recalls them all. Apparently they are worried about the summer heat making these a huge mess, which I can absolutely see. If some of these melted on you, not only would there be no structural recovery, but I can't imagine a much messier chocolate.

(I have indeed had a good time doing pocket coffee photo shoots in the lead up to posting this)

Well I had the decaf ones, which have about 5 mg of caffeine in them, maybe partially just from the chocolate, and I was hooked. I had a surprisingly hard time finding more, and thought I was out of luck. We left for the airport at 3 am and I still hadn’t acquired any. I walked around the entire duty free area twice looking for these little buggers, but came up empty handed. The duty free clerk directed me to the cafe bar upstairs and voila! There were hundreds of five-packs at each checkout. I bought five five-packs and merrily went on my way, but I wanted to sleep on the planes, so I had to have some restraint and hold off until closer to landing.

I have since found out that they are available online, but for about twice the price of the airport bar. Suffice to say that I am cruising through these guys about two a day. I typically treat myself to an iced coffee on tough days, of which I have many, though my bar for “tough enough for an iced coffee” is admittedly low. Now I am still doing that and I get to have a couple pocket coffees on the side. The real deal caffeinated ones have about 20 mg of caffeine per cube, so it’s not egregious, but it is noticeable. I am a “pop that whole thing in my mouth” kinda guy, but I also occasionally bite the top off to sip on it like it’s an actual cup of coffee. (Please leave all of that in context.)

If you go to Italy, I highly recommend seeking these bad boys out. A little burst of joy from some of my favorite things all in one little package.