Specialty coffee in Padua

At the cafe by the university here, the green room was from the start for people who could not afford it: you could come in, sit down, drink some water and read the paper without ordering anything. Broke students warmed up there in winter at the house's expense. The custom has not died - students of the University of Padua get a free americano at that same cafe today, and in the green room you are still allowed to order nothing. It supposedly gave Italian the phrase "essere al verde", to be without a penny: the whole country uses an expression invented by a single room in Padua.