Episode notes
The Wiener Melange, or Vienna blend, is often compared to a cappuccino, but the traditional version is gentler. Vienna's Cafe Sperl makes it with half a cup of mild brewed coffee and half a cup of steamed cream, topped with milk foam. Brewed coffee pulls fewer sharp acids than espresso, and cream with around 36 percent butterfat coats the palate, so the drink blends into one soft, rich cup instead of pitting bitter espresso against thin milk.
Outside Vienna the name drifts. Nescafe, Movenpick, and Lufthansa catering sell a Wiener Melange of coffee blended with cocoa, sometimes with no foam at all. In English and French, Vienna coffee or cafe viennois usually means an espresso con panna, topped with cold whipped cream that slowly chills the coffee, and in Vienna that drink is properly a Franziskaner, named for the light brown robes of Franciscan friars, much as the Kapuziner and the cappuccino take their name from the darker brown of Capuchin robes.
- Cafe Sperl's recipe is the episode's reference point for the authentic melange.
- Whipped cream sits cold on top, while hot milk foam insulates and blends into the coffee.
- Some Vienna waiters now bring an espresso with whipped cream when tourists order a melange, because the mix-up is so common.
- Before standard recipes and measurements, the shade of brown was how cafes judged the mix of coffee and dairy.
- The Capuchin name comes from the order's pointed hood, the capucho.