Not for the reason you think!
You're sitting in a nice cafe or pastry shop, you order your favorite coffee, and you get a small glass of water or soda with it. A familiar situation, right?
I bet that - maybe even you - many people start their coffee drinking in the following order:
You stir it, because you have to, even if you haven't put sweetener in your coffee. You sip your coffee and try not to stick out your little finger, because that's not trendy anymore.
Then you drink the water and let the pleasant coffee experience brighten your day.
Well, we don't particularly want to stomp on your soul, but you're doing it wrong.
That miniature glass of water shouldn't be drunk after your coffee. But before it. It serves the same purpose as when you occasionally rinse your capsule coffee machine and find that you conjure much cleaner, finer, more intense flavors from the coffee capsule after this ritual.
The water served in cafes serves the same beneficial effect. First, drink the water, which is really no more than one or two sips (we sometimes wonder, do such tiny glasses really exist as those we've encountered in one or two of our cafes?). This prepares your taste buds for the coffee, making it an even more fantastic experience. Professionals even clean their palates with water and only then sip their coffee.
We don't particularly want to write with professional seriousness in this letter, but believe us, even Italian coffee specialists swear by the water-coffee order.