9 Reasons to Experience the World's Most Beautiful Starbucks

Starbucks will open its first location in Italy Friday with the debut of its highly anticipated Reserve Roastery inside the historic Poste building in Milan's Piazza Cordusio. Designed as an homage to Italian espresso culture, the 25,000-square-foot Reserve Roastery is quite possibly the world's most beautiful Starbucks.

Starbucks Reserve Roastery Milan will be the first to offer guests 360-degree views of the coffee manufacturing process, from the roaster to the packing line.

The fully-functioning coffee roaster was developed just outside of Milan by the family-owned, historic coffee manufacturing company Scolari. It marks the debut use of a Scolari machine in a Starbucks Reserve Roastery project.

The Reserve Roastery's centerpiece is a 22-foot bronze cask that unfolds, providing customers with a rare glimpse inside of the degassing chamber. While other Roasteries' casks are crafted from copper, the Milan location's is made of bronze to reflect the city's unique design and architecture.

The Starbucks Reserve Roastery Milan will be the first Starbucks location to feature an Arriviamo Bar, which will serve more than 100 different traditional and specialty cocktails paired with small delicacies during the early evening hours.

The Reserve Roastery's Princi Bakery will feature a wood-fired oven made using an ancient technique that gives it a unique method for indirectly radiating heat from a wood fire to bake bread the way it was meant to be.

Starbucks Reserve Roastery Milan's entrance is surrounded by floor-to-ceiling, wall-to-wall visual representation of Starbucks history and its coffee. The wall also incorporates an augmented reality experience that allows guests to learn more about various elements of the story simply by pointing their phone at various images throughout the Reserve Roastery.

The Milan Reserve Roastery is also the first Starbucks anywhere to use marble in its bar tops. All of the bars, which are heated from within, were carved from the same 30-ton block of Calacatta Macchia Vecchia marble, sourced from Tuscany.

Hand-laid by local artisans, the Reserve Roastery's mosaiced floor was crafted in the Palladiana style particular to Northern Italy. Interestingly, one of the marbles used in the flooring, Candoglia, comes from a quarry owned by the Citizens of Milan and was exclusively used for the Duomo of Milan and buildings in the surrounding Piazza until very recently.

A theatrical mix of food and beverage innovation dubbed "Fire and Ice" awaits guest at the end of the Main Bar. The line of siphons used for heating water to brew coffee is adjacent to an affogato station where ice cream is made to order in single batches. The cream base is combined with liquid nitrogen, generating a flourish of cold steam as its released into the air.