Kapuziner

Why this works

The Kapuziner is defined by colour rather than by a recipe. Capuchin friars wear a brown habit, and the drink is black coffee with just enough cream to match it. That makes it much darker and stronger than a cappuccino, and texturally simpler: cream stirred in, not milk foamed. It is the coffee equivalent of seasoning to taste, and the measure is visual.

Cream works differently from milk here. At around 10 to 20 percent fat it softens the coffee's bitterness more per spoonful than milk does, because fat coats the tongue and carries the bitter compounds more slowly to the taste receptors. Casein in the cream binds some of the polyphenols that make coffee astringent. So a small amount transforms the cup, which is why a tablespoon is enough.

The drink is old, documented in Viennese coffeehouses in the eighteenth century under the name Kapuziner. When espresso machines and steamed milk arrived in Italy in the early twentieth century, the Italian word cappuccino, little Capuchin, was applied to the new milk-and-foam drink of a similar colour. The cappuccino therefore took the Viennese idea and the Viennese name, and changed almost everything else.

Modern Vienna often adds a spoon of whipped cream and a dusting of cocoa, which blurs the line with other coffeehouse drinks. The old test still applies: if it is not the colour of the habit, it is not a Kapuziner.

Variations

• Franziskaner: lighter, with whipped cream on a Melange, named after the paler-robed Franciscans.
• With whipped cream and cocoa: the most common modern Viennese finish.
• German Kapuziner: in parts of Germany the name is used for a coffee with whipped cream and chocolate shavings.
• Iced: strong coffee with cream poured over ice.