Coffee – I Couldn’t Resist

I couldn’t resist. I went into Dictionary.com to check a spelling and this was on the banner (who said people don’t read those banner ads).

ARE LATTES ESPRESSO OR CAPPUCCINO? 

This is my kind of question, especially on a chilly San Francisco morning as I sit hugging my espresso drink, or it a cappuccino? And definitely as I sit in this charming little coffee shop near the Embarcadero trying desperately hard not to listen to two young ladies who are analyzing whether one was right to tell her relatively new boyfriend that he couldn’t drop by to just talk as she was in bed.

So you see there was no way this had any chance of being a serious post. Oh, and for those of you who are not clear on their caffaine-related definitions:

1. cafe au lait

(n.) hot coffee served with an equal amount of hot or scalded milk.

2. cafe brulot

(n.) black coffee flavored with sugar, lemon and orange rinds, cloves, cinnamon, and brandy, ignited and allowed to flame briefly.

3. cafe con leche

(n.) strong, black coffee mixed with hot milk.

4. cafe creme

(n.) coffee with cream.

5. cafe filtre

(n.) coffee made by pouring hot water through ground coffee placed in a filtering device.

6. cafe noir

(n.) black coffee.

7. caffe latte

(n.) hot espresso with steamed milk, usually topped with foamed milk.

8. cappuccino

(n.) a hot beverage consisting of espresso coffee and steamed milk, often served with powdered cinnamon and topped with whipped cream.

9. espresso

(n.,) a strong coffee prepared by forcing live steam under pressure, or boiling water, through ground dark-roast coffee beans.

10. irish coffee

(n.) a mixture of hot coffee and Irish whiskey, sweetened and topped with whipped cream.

11. latte

(n.) hot espresso with steamed milk, usually topped with foamed milk.

12. mocha

(n.) a flavoring obtained from a coffee infusion or a combined infusion of chocolate and coffee.

13. turkish coffee

(n.) a strong, usually sweetened coffee, made by boiling the pulverized coffee beans.

Now excuse me. I need to order my cup of green tea.

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Alon Shalev is the author of The Accidental Activist (now available on Kindle) and A Gardener’s Tale. He is the Executive Director of the San Francisco Hillel Foundation, a non-profit that provides spiritual and social justice opportunities to Jewish students in the Bay Area. More on Alon Shalev at http://www.alonshalev.com/and on Twitter (#alonshalevsf).