from
Behind the French Menu
by
Bryan G. Newman
bryangnewman@gmail.com
A café, in France.
Photograph by courtesy of mia!
www.flickr.com/photos/_mia/2584964985/
A French café is more than just the coffee and pastries it serves. A successful French café offers minimally comfortable seating and a place where people may meet regularly, drink coffee, or relax and just let the world pass by.
The first coffee bean
Long before the first French café, there
was the first grain de café—the first coffee bean that grew on a small
evergreen tree in Ethiopia. (The coffee bean is, in fact, a seed that grows in
pairs inside a coffee cherry, but I will keep to tradition and call it a bean.)
.
Coffee cherries
Photograph courtesy of Larry Jacobsen
https://www.flickr.com/photos/ljguitar/405457216
Following the Sacred Bean
From Ethiopia, the beans and the secrets of
their preparation were exported to Yemen. There, Sufi mystics used the power of
the bean to sustain long nights of prayer and meditation, transforming coffee
from a wild fruit into a sacred tool for wakefulness. Yemen became the world's first international coffee exporter, selling
beans to Ottoman Turkey.
Coffee quickly became the most popular
national drink in Turkey, with returning travelers returning home praising
'Turkish Coffee.' The drink finally reached Europe alongside the Ottoman
Empire’s army as it expanded into Southeastern and Central Europe. When the
Ottomans eventually retreated, the coffee remained.
France's first French café
According
to accepted tradition, coffee came to Paris with Pascal Harutyun, an Armenian
businessman from Aleppo, then part of the Ottoman Empire. Pascal set up a
coffee booth at the Saint-Germain Fair in Paris (Foire Saint-Germain) in
1672 and went on to open France’s first coffee house on the Quai de l’École,
near the Pont Neuf bridge, around the same year. (London had seen its first
coffee house open in 1652 with the credit usually going to Pasqua Rosée,
another Armenian.)
In the early evening.
Happy Hour
sometimes comes to French cafés
Photograph by courtesy of
Archibald Ballantine.
www.flickr.com/photos/johngevers/14004975/
The oldest café still operating in
Paris
The oldest
French coffee house still open in France is the Café Le Procope, also in Paris;
it opened in 1686. The original owner of Le Procope was an Italian immigrant
from Palermo, Sicily, Francesco Procopio. Today Le Procope is no longer a
traditional café; rather, it is a smart restaurant and not an inexpensive one,
offering history, excellent food, and of course, excellent coffee. Le Procope’s
traditions include the claim to have introduced ice cream to France. (The café
has opened and closed on the same site with different owners over the years, so
Francesco was not available for an interview the last time I visited.)
The outside of Le
Procope today.
Photograph Courtesy of Serge Melk
www.flickr.com/photos/sergemelki/3364276074/
Having
a coffee in Le Procope today
If you are visiting Le Procope for coffee, ice cream and a touch of history, it is best to go outside of regular meal hours as at lunch and dinner, every table in Le Procope is reserved for diners. Later, while you sip your coffee, consider that you may well be sitting at the same spot where, in the past, sat John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, Benjamin Franklin, Voltaire, Danton, Marat, or possibly Robespierre; that is real coffee history.
The inside of Le Procope today
Photograph by courtesy of Michael Rys
www.flickr.com/photos/mrys/176993289/
The oil in the bean is far more important than the
roast.
The packaging of most branded coffees will
tell you the type of roast but little else; however, the amount of oil in the
coffee bean affects the taste far more than the roast. The perfect roast cannot
produce flavor from dry, oil-less beans. (In fact, darker roasts achieve their
bolder profile by drawing these oils to the surface.) For those who visit both
France and Italy on a European trip, you may taste the difference in their
coffees; the French favor the oiler beans, followed closely by the Italians.
Grains de Café, Coffee Beans.
Photograph courtesy of Apple’s Eyes Studio through
Freedigtalphotos.net.
The two beans that fight for your business.
Behind the scenes, battling for market share, are two coffee beans: the Arabica and the Robusta, and their various family members. The Arabica has 50% less caffeine and is considered superior in flavor, but it is much more expensive; consequently, nearly all coffees on the market are blends of the two, with only a few premium brands being 100% Arabica. However, Robusta provides a higher caffeine kick and the golden-brown froth, the mousse (or crema, as the Italians call it), that traditional coffee drinkers expect.
The Blenders
Inside a coffee importer’s warehouse, there are highly trained and highly paid coffee blenders. These employees, like the blenders in the great Champagne and Cognac houses, rely on their sensitive palates and refined olfactory sense to prepare special blends. These blends are prepared for their most valuable customers—the café and restaurant industry.
Both 100% Robusta and 100% Arabica coffees can be blends, as different subgroups of each plant offers different flavors. After blending and roasting, these blends will have a taste and smell that does not vary from batch to batch, month to month, or year to year.
Coffee in a French home.
In many French homes, café au lait—a milky coffee—is the traditional way to start the day. Until about ten years ago, the cafetière (French press) was the unchallenged method for making the morning coffee, but slowly and surely, capsule machines have taken close to 50% of the home market; in cafés and restaurants, espresso machines rule. NB: Don’t expect to find much filter coffee in France;
In France, coffee isn't just a drink; it’s a clock
In
France, coffee isn't just a drink; it’s a clock. The type of coffee ordered
tells you exactly what time of day it is and whether the patron is 'on the go',
standing at the bar (the comptoir) rather than sitting down.
Le Petit Déjeuner (Breakfast).
At home, many French people
still favor a bol de café (a coffee bowl) rather than a mug for the
morning’s café au lait, coffee with plenty of steamed milk. The bowl is
practical: it keeps your hands warm and provides a target for dipping a tartine
beurrée (buttered bread).
In a café, the morning order is typically a café crème (espresso with a generous amount of frothed milk). A café crème is basically the professional version of a café au lait. This is the only time of day when it is truly 'acceptable' to order a milky coffee.
A bol de cafe
L’Après-Déjeuner (After Lunch)
After lunch, the coffee of
choice is un café, also called un petit noir, a small, strong
espresso served black. Some cafés may serve it with a single square of dark
chocolate or un spéculoos (a small biscuit); these cut the bitterness
and make the patron feel welcome. NB: The French rarely order a cappuccino
after a meal; it is not considered good for your digestion.
L’Après-midi (Afternoon break)
In the mid-afternoon, the same
hour children enjoy their goûter (after-school snack), adults take their
own pause-café. This is a slower, more social time, often marked by an
order of a café allongé or a café noisette.
A café allongé is an
espresso "lengthened" with hot water.
A café noisette is named
after the French word for "hazelnut." This is an espresso with just a
small amount of milk or cream, which turns the coffee the hazelnut‑brown color of a hazelnut shell.
Le Soir (Evening)
After dinner, coffee is again
served black and small. For those worried about caffeine and sleep, the order
becomes a déca (decaffeinated espresso); you may also request tea.
In many restaurants, there is
also the option of a café gourmand. This is an espresso served on a tray with a
selection of three to five mini-desserts. It perfectly solves the classic
dilemma: coffee or dessert? While the selection varies, it often includes a
mini crème brûlée, a chocolate mousse, a madeleine or a biscuit.
A café gourmand
Photograph courtesy of Merle ja Joonas
https://www.flickr.com/photos/merlejajoonas/6882916998/
The barista, the most important individual in the
cafe.
In the best French cafés, the
espresso coffee machine will be under the control of an experienced maître
barista, a skilled operator of an industrial espresso machine. The title
barista comes from the Italian, (as the Italians invented the espresso coffee
machines, they also own the name). Coffee connoisseurs will tell you that only an expert barista can prepare
a perfect cup of coffee every time. The correct heat of the water, the proper
water pressure, and the correct tamping of the coffee for the espresso machine
complete the work of a barista. To make the perfect cup of coffee, the barista will
be trained like any other professional and the makers of the various espresso
coffee machines and the coffee blenders run training courses for baristas.
Coffee beans, coffee cherries and a coffee tea.
Coffee
beans (its seeds) grow in pairs inside a coffee cherry; unlike a regular cherry or a grape, with their protective layers make up about 60% of the fruit's volume.
Because
of their high sugar content, ripe cherries begin to ferment almost the moment
they are picked. Within hours, the flavor can change from sweet fruit to
something far less pleasant; for this reason, the fresh fruit is rarely
exported.
However, the dried pulp and skin can be steeped to create a unique tea called Cascara (Spanish for husk). This tea is fruitier and contains less caffeine than coffee. Cascara tea was permitted as a safe food ingredient in Europe in 2021 and now its aficionados can find it in some speciality French coffee shops as an Infusion de Cascara.
From the first coffee booth of 17th-century Paris to the marble tables of Le Procope where revolutionaries plotted a new world, coffee has defined the French experience. It evolved from a rare Ottoman curiosity into a daily ritual that spans every hour of the day—whether it is a morning café au lait, an afternoon petit noir , or a modern curiosity like an infusion de cascara.
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Behind the French Menu
by
Bryan G. Newman
Copyright 2010, 2012, 2016, 2021, 2026
Thanks for sharing such an informative post.
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