Flavors of Austria

Austrian coffee - Beverage and Coffee House

The practice of coffee drinking can be traced right back to fourteenth-century Arabia. The coffee plant reached Europe by ship in the seventeenth century, and the Turks brought it to Vienna during the Ottoman wars.

Austria’s first coffee house is thought to have opened in 1685. Europeans initiated the cultivation of coffee in the Caribbean during the eighteenth century. Today coffee plantations exist anywhere in subtropical and tropical regions where there is sufficient heat and humidity. One of Vienna’s longest-standing public institutions is the coffee house, which has existed in the capital since the eighteenth century and has long since spread throughout the country. Many of these coffee houses are architectural jewels from the turn-of-the-century Jugendstil era. Traditionally they serve as places not only for drinking coffee but also for reading newspapers, playing billiards, meeting friends or just sitting and watching the world go by.

What to ask for?
There are innumerable variations on the coffee theme. Here are some of the best-known:

Mokka
A potent black coffee
Melange: A medium-strength coffee with hot milk and lots of froth on top

Brauner, klein oder groß
Small (“Kleiner Brauner”) or large (“Grosser Brauner”) coffee with milk

Einspänner
Black coffee served with whipped cream and icing sugar in a glass

Espresso, groß oder klein
Black coffee made in an espresso machine (small or large: Klein or Gross)

Fiaker
Mokka served in a glass, laced with cognac or rum

Franziskaner
Melange with extra milk, topped with whipped cream and chocolate flakes

Kaffee "Blondl"
Medium-strength Mokka with cream, honey and a shot of apricot liqueur, topped with whipped cream and roast breadcrumbs

Kaffee "Verkehrt"
Literally: wrong-way-round coffee: a small Mokka served in a teacup and topped with whisked hot milk

Kapuziner
Black coffee with a few drops of cream to turn it brown like the habit of a Capuchin monk (“Kapuziner”)

Maria Theresia
Double Mokka garnished with orange liqueur, whipped cream and chocolate flakes

Schwarzer, groß od. klein
Black coffee, small (kleiner Schwarzer) or large (Grosser Schwarzer), no milk

Eiskaffee
Chilled coffee with vanilla ice-cream, topped with whipped cream and chocolate flakes, served in a tall glass.