Caffè Damosso

Entering the Damosso café-cum-coffee roasting business in Turin’s Vanchiglietta quarter, a stone’s throw from the River Po, you’re likely to find the period Biricchina roasting machine in action as ever. Here in a relatively confined space, you can have a coffee at the counter, sit down among jute sacks filled with still green coffee beans, buy your favorite blend on the other side of the premises, or see beans being toasted over a high flame, ground and vacuum-packed.

Paolo and Enzo Damosso, with their wives Silvana and Donatella, carry on the business launched by their father Vitale in 1948 with great passion. In addition to lines for bars and restaurants (they boast a number of prestigious clients in Turin), they also roast small batches of varieties – not all of them easy to source – for their most regular customers: examples are a mono-origin from Colombia aged in barrels that once contained rum and Pacamara from Salvador (in normal and large grains), which offers citrusy notes and a strong aftertaste. Other mono-origins still arrive from India, Ethiopia, Santo Domingo, Nicaragua and Costa Rica. Closed on Wednesday afternoon.