Coffee drinks around the world

What makes a coffee drink local#

Every coffee drink starts with roasted coffee and water. What changes from place to place is the rest. Cultures differ in how dark they roast, how they brew and whether they add sugar, milk or spice.⁵ They also differ in where coffee is drunk, who serves it and in what order.^1,3

The first coffee drinkers on record were Sufi mystics in what is now Yemen, in the mid-15th century, according to a coffee historian.⁵ In his account, they used a brew of dried coffee husks seen in Ethiopia, called buno there and qishr by the Sufis.⁵ Ethiopia’s own way of preparing and sharing coffee is described in the Ethiopian coffee ceremony entry. How coffeehouses spread from Arabia to Europe has its own entry too.

This entry describes drinks from the sources by or about the cultures that make them. It covers only drinks for which we found an official, academic or institutional source. Several well-known drinks are therefore missing (see Open questions).

Some coffee traditions are recognised as cultural heritage. UNESCO lists Turkish coffee culture and Arabic coffee on its Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.^1,3 Austria lists Viennese coffeehouse culture on its national inventory.¹³ The listings describe social practices: preparing, serving and sharing coffee.^1,3

Turkish and Arabic coffee#

Turkish coffee. Freshly roasted coffee is ground to a fine powder. The coffee, cold water and sugar go into a pot and brew slowly on a stove until a foam forms.¹ The pot is the cezve.² In a 2023 study, the coffee is cooked on medium heat without stirring and taken off before it boils.² According to a coffee science textbook, the grounds must settle, and some sediment reaches the cup.⁶

The coffee comes in small cups with a glass of water.¹ The water cleans the mouth before drinking, and a Turkish delight is part of the service.² According to UNESCO, the drink stands for hospitality and friendship. It is drunk in coffeehouses where people meet to talk, share news and read.¹ The grounds left in the cup are sometimes used to tell fortunes.¹ Coffee reached Istanbul in the 16th century; the 2023 study notes that sources give different dates for its arrival.² The coffeehouses entry covers the first coffeehouses there.

Arabic coffee. The file submitted to UNESCO by the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Oman and Qatar describes the preparation. The beans are lightly roasted in a shallow pan over a fire.³ They are pounded in a copper mortar and brewed with water in a large copper pot over the fire.³ A coffee historian describes the early Arabian drink as lightly roasted and flavoured with cardamom.⁵

Serving follows clear rules. The most important or oldest guest is served first, with a quarter of a cup that can be refilled.³ It is common to drink at least one cup and no more than three.³ The coffee is poured with the right hand, and the guest shakes the cup to show they have had enough.⁴ UNESCO describes serving Arabic coffee as a ceremonial act of generosity.³

Espresso cultures and milk drinks#

Italy. According to a coffee historian, Italian coffee culture grew around the espresso bar.⁵ Espresso was brewed fresh for each customer and drunk quickly, often standing at the counter.⁵ In his account, the bar served coffee before work, coffee breaks and an espresso after meals.⁵ In the south, sugar was often put into the cup before it was served.⁵ At home, the moka pot became popular throughout Italy.⁵ The espresso recipes entry gives the parameters of the Italian espresso definition.

Cappuccino and latte. According to the same historian, “cappuccino” first meant a small white coffee.⁵ It became an espresso topped with steamed milk, made at the bar.⁵ Caffelatte was a working-class breakfast at home: milk and bread warmed in a pan, often with little or no coffee.⁵ The espresso entry follows how the American caffè latte developed from café au lait.

New Zealand. A 1997 photograph in the encyclopedia of New Zealand shows a Wellington café whose opening in 1989 marked the return of fresh espresso.⁹ Its caption calls the drink served “probably a flat white or caffè latte”.⁹ A curator at New Zealand’s national museum links the rise of coffee there to the arrival of American servicemen and of European immigrants and refugees in the 20th century.¹⁰ No source opened for this entry settles where the flat white was first made.

Kettle coffee and coffeehouses in Europe#

Nordic countries. According to a coffee historian, light roasts dominated in Scandinavia, especially in Finland.⁵ Coffee was brewed directly in a kettle and mostly drunk black.⁵ Among Sami reindeer herders, any milk added was dried reindeer milk; in Sweden, a common addition was cheese.⁵ Some drinkers sucked the coffee through a lump of sugar held between the lips.⁵ In Sweden, the fika break with coffee and cake developed in the late 19th century.⁵

Vienna. Viennese coffeehouse culture has been part of Austria’s national inventory of intangible cultural heritage since 2011, as a social practice.¹³ The inventory text names small marble tables on which the coffee is served, Thonet bentwood chairs, booths and newspaper tables.^8,13 A literary scholar describes reading newspapers in the coffeehouse as a social act.⁸

France. According to a coffee historian, both rich and poor households in 18th-century France drank coffee with milk and sugar.⁵ He describes this as turning coffee from a drink into a food with calories.⁵

Spiced, sweetened and blended coffees#

Mexico. A Mexican Christmas cookbook of 1998 gives a recipe titled “Café de Olla, Receta Tradicional”.¹¹ Water is boiled in a deep clay pot with cinnamon, cloves, piloncillo (unrefined cane sugar) and stone-ground chocolate.¹¹ Ground coffee is stirred in as the water returns to the boil, and the heat is turned off.¹¹ The pot is kept warm by the fire, without boiling, while the grounds settle.¹¹ The coffee is taken from the top of the pot and served in individual jarritos (small mugs), with a thin cinnamon stick in place of a spoon.¹¹

Vietnam. A coffee science textbook names the iced, sugared Vietnamese cà phê sữa đá as an example of drinks created for people who do not like the taste of plain coffee.⁷ No academic or official source opened for this entry describes the phin filter or egg coffee.

India. According to a 2024 answer to India’s parliament, the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India has set standards for a coffee–chicory mixture: it must contain at least 51% coffee by mass.¹² No academic source opened for this entry describes South Indian filter coffee itself.

Japan. A coffee historian notes that Japan built its own coffee culture before mass consumption arrived.⁵ In his account, many practices later linked with the third wave drew on that culture.⁵ He describes it as a minority culture of coffee shops, while ready-to-drink canned coffee came to dominate the Japanese mass market.⁵ The eras and waves entry covers these labels.