Cappuccino

The consumption of coffee in Europe was initially based on the traditional Ottoman preparation of the drink, by bringing to boil the mixture of coffee and water together, sometimes adding sugar. The British seem to have started filtering and steeping coffee already in the second part of the 18th century, and France and continental Europe followed suit. By the 19th century, coffee was brewed in different devices designed for both home and public cafés.

The coffee beverage has its name not from the hood but from the colour of the hooded robes worn by monks and nuns of the Capuchin order. This colour is quite distinctive, and capuchin was a common description of the colour of red-brown in 17th century Europe. The Capuchin monks chose the particular design of their orders' robes both in colour and shape of the hood back in the 16th century, inspired by Francis of Assisi's preserved 13th century vestments. The long and pointed hood was characteristic and soon gave the brothers the nickname "capuchins" (hood-wearing). It was, however, the choice of red-brown as the order's vestment colour that, as early as the 17th century, saw "capuchin" used also as a term for a specific colour. While Francis of Assisi humbly used uncoloured and un-bleached wool for his robes, the Capuchins coloured their vestments to differ from Augustinians, Benedictines, Franciscans, and other orders.

Cappuccino is traditionally small (180 ml maximum) with a thick layer of foam, while "latte" traditionally is larger (200–300 ml). Caffè latte is often served in a large glass; cappuccino mostly in a 150–180 ml cup with a handle. Cappuccino traditionally has a layer of textured milk microfoam exceeding 1 cm in thickness; microfoam is frothed/steamed milk in which the bubbles are so small and so numerous that they are not seen, but it makes the milk lighter and thicker. As a result, the microfoam will remain partly on top of the mug when the espresso is poured in correctly as well as mix well with the rest of the cappuccino.

The World Barista Championships have been arranged annually since 2000, and during the course of the competition, the competing barista must produce—for four sensory judges—among other drinks four cappuccinos, defined in WBC Rules and Regulations as "[...] a coffee and milk beverage that should produce a harmonious balance of rich, sweet milk and espresso [....] The cappuccino is prepared with one (1) single shot of espresso, textured milk and foam. A minimum of 1 centimeter of foam depth [....] A cappuccino is a beverage between 150 ml and 180 ml in total volume [....]."

Along with the Freddo Espresso, they were conceived in Greece in 1991 and are in higher demand during summer. Outside Greece and Cyprus, Freddo Cappucino or Cappuccino Freddo is mostly found in coffee shops and delis catering to the Greek expat community. In 2017, Starbucks added the Cappuccino Freddo to branch menus in Europe.

Cappuccino was traditionally a taste largely appreciated in Europe, Australia, South America, and some of North America. By the mid-1990s, cappuccino was made more available to North Americans, as upscale coffee houses sprang up.

Cappuccino was born on January 11, 1974 in Brunswick, Lower Saxony, Germany as Karsten Löwe.

Although coffee was brewed differently all over Europe after the Second World War, in Italy, the real espresso machines became widespread only during the 1950s, and "cappuccino" was redefined, now made from espresso and frothed milk (although far from the quality of "microfoam" steamed milk today). As the espresso machines improved, so did the dosing of coffee and the heating of the milk. Outside Italy, cappuccino spread but was generally made from dark coffee with whipped cream, as it still is in large parts of Europe even in 2014.

The Viennese bestowed the name "Kapuziner", possibly in the 18th century, on a version that included whipped cream and spices of unknown origin. The Italian cappuccino was unknown outside Italy until the 1930s, and seems to be born out of Viennese-style cafés in Trieste and other Italian areas in Austria-Hungary through the Kapuziner coffee in the early 20th century. The drink spread from Trieste, the main coffee port in Central Europe, throughout Italy, especially after World War I and later worldwide, and can be found at a number of establishments.

In the United States, cappuccino spread alongside espresso in Italian American neighborhoods, such as Boston's North End, New York's Little Italy, and San Francisco's North Beach. New York City's Caffe Reggio (founded 1927) claims to have introduced cappuccino to the United States, while San Francisco's Caffe Trieste (founded 1956) claims to have introduced it to the west coast; the earlier Tosca Cafe in San Francisco (founded 1919) served a "cappuccino" earlier, but this was without coffee, and instead consisted of chocolate, steamed milk, and brandy.

Kapuziner remained unchanged on the Austrian coffee menu, even in Trieste, which by 1920 belonged to Italy, and in Bratislava, Budapest, Prague, and other cities of the former empire.

Espresso machines were introduced at the beginning of the 20th century, after Luigi Bezzera of Milan filed the first patent in 1901, although the first generations of machines certainly did not make espresso the way we define it today.

The word cappuccino, in its Italian form, is not known in Italian writings until the 20th century, but the German language kapuziner is mentioned as a coffee beverage in the 18th century in Austria, and is described as, "coffee with sugar, egg yolks and cream", in dictionary entries from 1800 onwards. Kapuziner was by the First World War a common coffee drink in cafés in the parts of northern Italy which at that time still belonged to Austria.

Adding milk to coffee was mentioned by Europeans already in the 1700s, and sometimes advised.