The ‘noisette’ in café noisette, which translates from French as ‘hazelnut coffee’, refers only to the hazelnut colour of the perfect infusion and not an ingredient. ‘Noisette’ is one of those confections found in chocolate selections: the hazelnut one. From French to give it that well-marketed sheen of sophistication. In music notation, however, a breve is a double note, which does add an accidental charm to the legato mix. Equal proportions of steamed milk and cream are added to an espresso base. A high street superhero.Īll that can be certain with this brew is that no milk is involved.Ī rich variation on a latte theme.
Go into your local coffee shop, look at the menu and be impressed by the spectrum of pleasurable refreshments and pick-me-ups in your barista’s repertoire. There’s much more to a barista than just coffee. You’d think in that case then that the bloke making the coffee would be a baristo with a nice masculine -o ending but, word and job, barista is non-gender-specific. Acquired for the coffee trade from the Italian for ‘bartender’. Not even in Italian.Ī coffee-maker and -server. Other than in this coffee context antoccino has no meaning whatever. One shot of espresso to an equal measure of steamed milk. Caffé Americano is the Italian way which is pretty much the same thing: one or two shots of espresso topped up with hot water. On the UK high street it is almost the coffee default. That’s the way the Spanish use it: for them it means ‘American’, diluted from café Americano in American Spanish. Affogato is Italian for ‘drowned’.Ī drink of watered down espresso. A scoop of ice cream dressed with a shot of espresso and, possibly, properly overdone with whipped cream. Warning: not wishing to put the mochas on your cuppas, or the jive on your Java, you should know that some of the following vocabulary items may contain hidden sugars.įor starters, the sybaritic pleasures of an afters. And, yes, the wide-awake and somewhat excitable caffeinated word list that follows is no doubt, yes, must be, the jittery result of one or two shots too many. īarista-speak is a compressed tone-poem a high street haiku if you get it right. Not that barista-speak would ever be confused with barrister jargon, except in support of an antique pun. Well, if statistics and PR are to be believed (and marketing statistics prove they are) then there are grounds to believe that the business of café culture is now a major part of our daily lexicon. ‘Why is this even a topic for a grammar blog?’ and ‘Why can’t I just get an ordinary cup of coffee anymore?’
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