Our little village has a "partner borough" in Italy. Rosora is a "comune" of about 1800 inhabitants located in the Marche region about 40 km west of Ancona. Recently, 40 residents of Rosora came by bus for a 4 day visit to our town. Most of them had been here before and many of us here have visited them in their village in the past. We had a wonderful time with them and in spite of the obvious language difficulties we got along fabulously and enjoyed ourselves a great deal.
Karin and I were hosts to a family and I served them a fresh roasted SO of Mexico Maragogype. I had been tempted to blend in 15% of a top quality robusta, but decided to just go with the SO. I can say that they were fairly stunned to get coffee in Germany that they liked better than the coffee they get at home. There is a very nice café in Rosora and I know the barista quite well. I like his coffee very much, but our guests said the coffee I served them was superior. What can I say?
In addition, Karin and I, with help from friends, cooked a 3-course dinner for 70 guests (Italian and German). We made various finger foods, slow-roasted lamb shoulder (recipe from Jamie Oliver), oven-baked potatoes, curry rice and various desserts and it was a huge success. It was a lot of work, of course, but having such overwhelmingly positive feedback made it well worthwhile.
It is interesting to see people from a small village learning to share their lives with similar people of a completely different culture. If you ever have a chance to partake in this kind of event I would heartily recommend doing so.