Vienna's softest, airiest coffee: a glass of warm civilisation served with a small biscuit and a long afternoon
Origin: Vienna, Austria
From the journey of Coffee.
Vienna's relationship with coffee is one of the great cultural stories of European history, beginning with a single dramatic military event. In 1683, the Ottoman army under Grand Vizier Kara Mustafa laid siege to Vienna for two months. When the Ottoman forces were repelled by the combined relief of Polish-Lithuanian and Habsburg armies, they retreated in such haste that they left behind their entire camp, including several hundred sacks of green coffee beans. A Polish-born merchant and spy named Franz Georg Kolschitzky (some sources credit Johannes Diodato, a Greek-Armenian merchant) claimed the coffee as his reward and opened the first Viennese coffeehouse, teaching the Viennese to brew and sweeten the unfamiliar beans. Whether or not the legend is perfectly accurate, the Kaffeehaus was born. Within decades, Vienna's coffeehouses had become the defining institution of Central European intellectual life; places where a guest could sit for an entire day over a single coffee, reading every available newspaper (provided on wooden rods), playing chess, writing novels, conducting business, and debating philosophy. Sigmund Freud, Stefan Zweig, Thomas Bernhard, Arthur Schnitzler, Leon Trotsky, and Lenin all famously frequented particular Viennese coffeehouses. The Café Central, Café Landtmann, Café Hawelka, and Café Schwarzenberg remain functioning today largely as they have for over a century. UNESCO inscribed Viennese coffeehouse culture as Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2011. The Wiener Melange (meaning 'Viennese mixture') is the quintessential café coffee: half espresso or strong coffee, half steamed milk, topped with a cloud of light milk foam, served in a glass on a small saucer with a single biscuit (often a Vanillekipferl) and a small glass of cold water. It is softer and airier than a cappuccino, less dense, less milky than a latte, a middle register that somehow suits a long, unhurried morning perfectly.
The Viennese coffeehouse menu distinguishes between many coffee varieties: Schwarzer (black espresso), Brauner (espresso with a small amount of milk, no foam), Verlängerter (a long espresso, diluted with hot water, equivalent to an americano), Melange (this recipe), Einspänner (a single espresso in a tall glass topped with a thick cap of unsweetened whipped cream, often dusted with cocoa; traditionally drunk by coachmen who needed one hand free), and Franziskaner (Melange with whipped cream instead of foam). The Melange is the most ordered. At a Viennese Kaffeehaus, it is completely normal; and historically expected; to sit for hours over a single coffee; the waiter will never rush you or take the glass away unless requested. This unhurried, intellectual atmosphere is precisely what UNESCO recognised as culturally significant.
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