I saw barley coffee on a lot of the menus in Naples. It tasted really yummy, sort of malty, but also kind of like drinking a beer in the morning.
I told this to Lucy (Voltage) and she said she thought barley coffee was really old school. A fake coffee, kind of like our chicory coffee in New Orleans.
She also told me that there were times in Europe when coffee was illegal. After the French revolution (which I guess started in coffee-houses), other governments were worried about this happening to their countries too. So they had coffee-sniffers that would go around making sure nobody was drinking coffee, and fining people if they were.