The process and the situation surrounding making and drinking your coffee are indeed important. I lived in Italy for many years and got used to drinking espresso and it's variants (only a few, not like Starbucks) at the typical bar. In Italy bars are like coffee shops that serve liquor, beer, and snacks. I never ran across any place which roasted coffee in-house. I was also never offered a choice of coffee brands or roasts. Many of my friends owned vineyards and produced wine. We had endless discussions about the various aspects of wine but I don't recall any Italian discussing the way coffee was roasted or the origin of the beans used to produce their morning espresso even though coffee is as important to Italians as is their wine. Perhaps there is a coffee snob bar in Milano or Turino or Roma, but I've never been to one.
The product delivered by the barista, as far as I could tell, was identical no matter where you bought coffee; i.e. it was the same anywhere in the country and no matter if the place was a fancy one in a large city or a tiny spot out in the country. From the point of view of a coffee expert, I would imagine the normal Italian coffee is not up to snuff. However, I thought the coffee I got in Italy was good, it was certainly consistent, and the experience was (at least to me) as important as the coffee. I never saw coffee served in other than a ceramic or glass container. Italians simply don't drink or eat in their cars. If it's worth consuming, they consume it on the spot and the process takes as long as it takes. I liked to savor and prolong the experience and part of that experience was watching Italians enjoy their breakfast. Two thirds of Italians eat breakfast and have coffee each morning at their local bar. During the day, workers often come in for a quick espresso and that was fun to watch too. Workers would place their order and pay, the coffee would be prepared and placed on the bar, and the patron standing at the bar would down it like a shot of medicine and immediately leave. The event takes only seconds.
At home in Italy I made my own in a tiny pot something like a regular percolator coffee pot. The water was heated in the bottom and driven up through the coffee chamber by steam pressure. But what made the pot different from perk coffee was the weighted valve which held back the hot coffee allowing the pressure to build up in the lower chamber. Of course the temperature increased well above the normal atmospheric pressure boiling point too. Eventually the pressure will overcome the valve and the super-hot water rushes through the coffee chamber under pressure. It's not as good as a real machine of course, but it did a pretty good job. Unfortunately, it made a single shot, so at dinner parties I hauled out four of the normal Italian coffee percolator pots to make normal Italian home made coffee. It was not very good but it was what every Italian drank at home and it was what they expected to get when drinking coffee not made at a bar with a genuine espresso machine. Nobody ever said, "Gee, I wish I could justify a real machine in my kitchen".
These days I live in a part of the U.S. where espresso machines are nearly non existent. I know of two, but they're a half hour away and manned by whatever waitress who happens to be in the vicinity and who have no real interest in coffee. So I use a Nespresso Vertuo coffee pod machine. It's the quickest way to produce coffee taking literally seconds to make several sizes of coffee. The offer a huge variety of coffee as well as a few flavored options, but I refill my own pods using the same bulk, pre-ground coffee I used to use in Italy. Yes, I know the "crema" is mostly foamy coffee produced by the centrifuge process, but as far as pod machine coffee goes, I think the Nespresso Vertuoline does the best job. Works for me.
I imagine I could produce a better cup of coffee if I roasted and ground the beans myself. I also imagine my BBQ ribs would be better if I raised my own hogs......... but I have my limits. I buy meat products from a high end, non chain grocery store rather than at Walmart or Costco. And I enjoy my pod coffee because it's a nice compromise of cost, speed, convenience, and taste.
In fact, I'm gonna' make a double espresso right now and start writing a letter to my Home Owners Association requesting a waver for a pig pen in my back yard.