Café mélange

Description

A Wiener Melange (German for “Viennese Blend”) is a speciality coffee drink similar to a cappuccino. The difference is sometimes assumed to be that the Melange is made with milder coffee but the Viennese coffee company Julius Meinl describes a Wiener Melange as “one espresso shot served in a large coffee cup topped with steamed milk and milk foam”. Cafe Sabarsky in Manhattan concurs. At Cafe Sperl in Vienna, the Melange is half a cup of “black coffee” and half a cup “creamy milk”, topped with milk foam. Nescafe, Movenpick, and Lufthansa Catering however serve Wiener Melange as Coffee blended with Cocoa – no matter whether foam topped or not. Kaffeehaus de Chatillon describes it as relative equal portions of kaffee, milk and cream foam in a 6oz cup.

The English term “Cafe Vienna” and the French Café viennois usually refer to espresso con panna – topped with whipped cream instead of milk foam. Ordering a Wiener Melange may yield the arrival of an espresso con panna even in Vienna, though this is properly called a Franziskaner (Franciscan Monk). The reference to Franciscan monks may apply to cappuccino too: Capuchin monks separated from the Franciscans in the 16th century; “cappuccino”, deriving from the Austrian coffee preparation “Kapuziner”, might refer to the hood of milk on top of the coffee (Italian “cappuccio” and German “Kapuze” meaning “hood”), but it merely refers to the brown color of the Capuchin robes