Food & Drinks

5x facts about cappuccino

By FavorFlav | #!30Mon, 12 Jun 2023 15:30:00 +0200+02:000030#30Mon, 12 Jun 2023 15:30:00 +0200+02:00-3Europe\/Amsterdam3030Europe\/Amsterdam202330 12pm30pm-30Mon, 12 Jun 2023 15:30:00 +0200+02:003Europe\/Amsterdam3030Europe\/Amsterdam2023302023Mon, 12 Jun 2023 15:30:00 +0200303306pmMonday=9#!30Mon, 12 Jun 2023 15:30:00 +0200+02:00Europe\/Amsterdam6#06-12-2023#!30Mon, 12 Jun 2023 15:30:00 +0200+02:000030#\/30Mon, 12 Jun 2023 15:30:00 +0200+02:00-3Europe\/Amsterdam3030Europe\/Amsterdam202330#!30Mon, 12 Jun 2023 15:30:00 +0200+02:00Europe\/Amsterdam6#

Say wine, snacks or haute cuisine and the gourmands at online food magazine FavorFlav know where to drink, how to eat it and what to cook. This time our cheffies serve you: fun facts about cappuccino.

We seem to move a lot less while working from home than we used to, when many people at least made regular trips to the coffee machine at the office. I was shocked by this news, because don’t you drink plenty of coffee at home? You surely start the day with a cappuccino (or two, three)? Divine drink, as far as I’m concerned. And did you already know these facts about it?

Because for something that is really less than, for example, black coffee a fairly ‘normal’ drink in the Netherlands, it’s now hard to imagine a life without it. That’s why we lovingly put these facts together:

Squarely laughed at
To start at the beginning: that beginning is really the start of the day. If you order a cappuccino (or another coffee with hot milk) in Italy after eleven o'clock in the morning, you make yourself immortal ridiculous. In the Netherlands, of course, you can do what you want, but should you ever find yourself in the luxurious position of being able to travel and dine and drink in that beautiful country, then we hereby warn you in advance.

Breakfast
So if you order that cappuccino (at breakfast), you want something to nibble on with it, right? In Italy, they generally don’t do extensive breakfasts with scrambled eggs, breakfast cereals, toast with butter or that kind of (delicious) nonsense. A traditional breakfast there consists of a cappuccino (or a macchiato or espresso), paired with a small sweet pastry like a cornetto (croissant) or a few biscotti cookies to dip.

Monk's work
In any case, making a perfect cappuccino is a very precise job. But that’s not necessarily where the name comes from. Stories about the etymological origin differ, but the most obvious is that the color of espresso with milk corresponds to the color of the habit of the Capuchin monks. Another explanation: the milk forms a ‘hat’ or a ‘cap’ on the espresso, comparable to the hood a monk can pull over his head.

Foam party
A top cappuccino stands or falls with the quality of the milk foam. It must be velvety microfoam, where steam has been blown in at exactly the right angle and temperature through the steam wand of the espresso machine. The foam must not exceed 70° C (after that your cappuccino tastes like boiled milk – yuck), and that’s why many milk pitchers for beginner baristas have a built-in thermometer. The idea is that you can feel with your hand at the bottom of the pitcher as quickly as possible when that precise temperature between 65° and 70° C is reached. Waited too long? You’ll feel that soon enough…

Willy Wortello
In 1902, the invention we now know as the espresso machine was presented. Luigi Bezzera was the inventor and the company La Pavoni was founded in 1905 to take it into production. It is still one of the most famous brands in the world when it comes to espresso machines. Not surprisingly, Bezzera came from Milan; the cradle of delicious food and numerous stunning Italian design utensils.