Starbucks to enter Italian coffee market

US coffee chain Starbucks is to open its first store in Italy, the company confirmed on Monday.

Starbucks said its first Italian outlet will open in Milan early in 2017, in partnership with Italian developer Percassi.

Howard Schultz, chairman and chief executive of the company, said the store will be designed with "painstaking attention to detail" to "honour the Italian people and their coffee culture".

"Visually, it has to be a very seductive place where Starbucks comes alive," he added.

Schultz said a trip to Milan in the 1980s, where he saw locals gathering at coffee bars, served as the inspiration to set up a coffee shop in US.

"The dream of the company always has been to sometime complete the circle and open in Italy, but we haven't been ready."

With plans finally in place for a launch, Schultz promised Starbucks would enter the birthplace of the espresso "with humility and respect."