“First you have a bite of cake, then you have some water, and THEN you drink the coffee.” These are the words told to me by Giuseppe Schisano, owner of Don Café Street Art Coffee in the Italian city of Naples. Used to sipping my espresso from a tiny cup, I was surprised that the coffee I was about to drink—prepared in a traditional Neapolitan flip pot—came with so many steps.

A lifetime coffee lover, Schisano was inspired to open a mobile coffee cart after seeing one in Copenhagen. He wanted to do the same in the Quarter Spagnoli of Naples, where he was born and raised, but with a twist: he would use the flip pot, known in Italian as la caffettiera napoletana, or colloquially, la cuccuma or la cuccumella.