Storytellers, keepers, believers
73 years of loving Naples coffee. It runs in the family.
Passalacqua, a coffee story
It was 1948. The war had just ended, Italy was left to rebuild, and money was tight for everyone.
Grandpa Samuele rolled up his sleeves and went back to work as a sales rep, while his three sons — Biagio, Yor Armando and Emilio — young and driven by that particular kind of hope you have when believing is your only option, kept an eye out for a chance worth taking.
And the chance came, the way good things often do: almost by accident. An old machine that could roast just 5 kilos of coffee every twenty minutes. That was all it took to get things started.
Four generations on, we're still here. And the best part? We still feel like "small craftsmen," just as we did back then — Uncle Biagio used to say it all the time, and we've never stopped believing it.
The "scugnizzo" who licked his moustache: our quality brand
If you're familiar with our brand, you already know it: a cheeky little character with a feather in his hair, licking his moustache with pure satisfaction. What you might not know is the story behind it. One day, Grandpa Samuele offered a sip of his coffee to a young apprentice who'd come to the factory on a delivery. He drank it, licked his moustache — and Samuele wanted to capture that look of pure, honest pleasure forever.
That's how our brand was born, known around the world today. A small story that became our signature.
"The best coffee in Italy"
Mario Soldati, the celebrated Italian journalist, wrote it in Turin's "La Stampa" in the 1960s, after a cup at Bar Mexico in Piazza Dante, Naples — our first-ever coffee shop. With pride, and a responsibility we take seriously, we work every day to earn that title, one cup at a time.
Today, let the numbers speak
73 years of family business, without ever losing our way home.
14 countries we source our coffee from, bean by bean.
5,750 sqm of factory space, just outside Naples.
3,460 kg/hour of production capacity — yet the care remains handmade.
We distribute our coffee across Italy and to 35 countries worldwide. And yet, every time you walk into our courtyard, you catch that same coffee scent from 73 years ago. Because deep down, as Uncle Biagio used to say, we're still "small craftsmen." Our workshop's just a little bigger now.
"It all started from there: from the desire to begin again, from a coffee that travelled from far away lands to be transformed into something to be proud of, through four generations."
— Paola Passalacqua
