Andrea Consilvio did something this spring that he called “a little crazy.” He bought an old and well-known coffee bar in the northwestern Italian city of Turin, his hometown.

Brewing coffee for coffee-obsessed Italians, the people who invented espresso and the commercial machines and stovetop pots to make it, might hardly seem like a leap of faith. Nearly three-quarters of Italians drink coffee — by which they almost always mean espresso — at least once a day. Most Italians consider their daily coffee ritual to be sacrosanct.

Yet they also expect their coffee to be cheap, available for little more than pocket change at any bar counter in the country. And that, amid a global jump in coffee bean prices caused in part by trade disruptions and climate change, has set off simmering anxiety among Italians. They worry that higher costs could push up retail prices and unsettle a part of the food and beverage economy that feels distinctively Italian.

Among the most worried: the owners of the country’s ubiquitous coffee bars.

“The world of coffee is changing,” said Mr. Consilvio. “If prices continue to increase, it could become a serious danger” to both livelihoods and tradition.

Luigi Morello, the president of the Italian Espresso National Institute, which safeguards the quality of Italian espresso (it should be hazel brown to dark brown, with foam, among other things), said higher coffee prices had “rightfully alarmed” consumers.

“The whole supply chain is in crisis,” he said.