![]() ![]() This little guy walks the line perfectly for when it’s 3pm, you’re craving a coffee kick, you don’t want a pile of milk to go with it, but you think straight black coffee is like drinking an grumpy old guy’s bitterness and regret, liquefied. A shot of espresso with a shot of milk on the side. The Kleiner Brauner is named with one of those no bullshit, obvious German terms that make us love this language – it translates to ‘small brown,’ which describes this coffee to a tea… wait a second. Perhaps it’s a holy lump of Schlag, hence the name. The Franiskaner is exactly the same as a Melange, but with a lump of cream thrown in. Now we know how all those monks in the story books got their butter bellies – it was the cream in their coffee. The Italians call this one ‘Espresso con panna,’ but for some reason in Vienna it has been named Franziskaner, which is German for Franciscan monk. God knows why they named this coffee after the Habsburg ruler, but hey, who knows why they named a computer after a fruit. Especially if it’s orange liqueur – it’s kind of healthy then, isn’t it?! This coffee creature will warm you from the inside out, well, that will be mostly the alcohol doing the warming. There’s nothing wrong with hiding a bit of booze in your coffee, according to ye’ old Maria Theresia. But we could imagine one of those elegantly dressed, round-faced, button-nosed and stout old ladies trying to restrain the alcohol-and-sugar-induced giggling as she sips at her Biedermeier with her ringed pinky finger in the air. Well, there’s nothing elegant about the coffee that shares the same name, which comes with a dollop of cream bobbing about in it and a shot of apricot liquor hidden within its depths. The Biedermeier age of design was all about a focus on restraint, elegance and comfort. Many places serve it up with a squirt of cream nowadays as most of us have moved on from horses and are now being pulled along by public transport or automobiles that can handle our cream puff asses if we want to indulge in a coffee with cream… and rum. The Fiaker is an Einspänner, minus the cream… traditionally, anyway. The Fiaker is the low fat version of the Einspänner that the horse and carriage (which is called a Fiaker in Vienna) drivers would settle for when they felt they were slowing down the ride and the horses would file complaints about the extra weight they were carrying. Also, rum would often be thrown into the mix (lucky the horses knew where they were going). It would also keep the coffee from jumping out of the glass during their bumpy rides. ![]() ![]() The glass kept the hands of the Fiaker driver warm, while the cream top would act as a insulator for the coffee in the depths below. While another Vienna coffee is named Fiaker after the horse and carriages you can still find clippety-clopping around the city, this was the preferred drink of most Fiaker drivers. It’s not only trying to be an individual with the whole glass thing, however this also had a purpose in ye’ old days. Anyhow, while we’re working on that – this coffee creature is part of the Vienna cream-topped coffee family, but stands out from the crowd by being served up in a glass. The Einspänner is the coffee every woman would order if it was a man – strong and with a creamy top. Some say it’s similar to the Cappuccino, but to those people we say – with nostrils full of froth after our first sip of our morning Melange – ‘we have the fancier sounding name, and our froth is bigger than yours.’ A mélange (that’s French for ‘mix’) of one shot espresso, a splash of hot water served in a cup, topped with a mountain of frothy, steaming, foamy milk (we know, it sounds as sensual and sexy as its name). We’ve captured, in strangely beautiful pop art photography, 13 coffee creations that have survived, and are still served in many of the coffeehouses around Vienna.Īhhh, the mighty Melange. Some of them may be rebranded copies of other creations from around the world, but the Viennese have claimed them, nonetheless. We know you’re going to try and fight back with claims that Italy or France is the capital of coffee, and we do not contest – they do prepare a quality cup – however the truth of the matter is, here in little old Vienna, coffee has mutated into 40 different coffee kinds. ![]()
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