So here in Germany they have a bit of coffee-house culture. There are many places here in Tübingen alone where you can go and have a Milchkaffee, the standard coffee drink in Germany.

A Milchkaffee is made from drip coffee combined with hot milk. Regular German coffee to me tastes about the same as American drip coffee, although in theory it is not made with a Mr. Coffee style drip system, but rather a filter system where the hot water sits a bit in the grounds before going into the pot. Or something. In any case, I find both styles a little bitter and a bit watery. I’m just a huge fan of strong Italian espresso myself, and I don’t drink much else these days, since we have an Italian stove-top moka machine to make our espresso-ish coffee at home in the morning. Nothing like a nice strong, flavorful cup of coffee to start off the day, that’s what I say.

But here in Germany, it’s more common to start the day with a Milchkaffee. The first time I tried it, I was blown away … by how little like coffee it tasted like. There’s a lot of milk in that big cup. I don’t know for sure what the proportions are, and some of the weakness of the coffee flavor could be coming from the drip coffee itself. In any case, the idea of starting the day with a German Milchkaffee every day had no appeal.  And for months I avoided having them at any time of day.  But then I remembered having hot milk drinks years ago in North America; there used to be these Italian syrups cafes in Vancouver would offer to add to your coffee or steamed milk drinks. I never saw those syrups used in coffee drinks in Italy, and they don’t use them here. But, if you approach a Milchkaffee like a coffee-flavored steamed milk drink, then it’s not so bad.

Just don’t think of it as coffee if you like Italian espresso. 😉

Now, you can get espresso here in Tübingen in some cafes, but it’s typically not that great. Adding a little bit of milk to it sometimes makes it more palatable. However, the same was often true in Bolzano, a place that was Italy, but only just when it came to truly good Italian espresso. Espresso with just a tiny bit of warm milk added is called a macchiato, and I would often have that in Bolzano instead of just a plain, non-optimal espresso.

Please note that an Italian macchiato is not the same as an Italian latte drink; the latter is made with a lot of milk combined with espresso coffee.  Here in Germany it’s hard to find an Italian style macchiato drink. Instead, what you find in most German coffees that offer any kind of Italian drinks is called a Latte Macchiato. That’s a hot beverage that’s sort of like an Italian latte; i.e. it’s an espresso drink with hot milk. However, proportionally speaking a German Latte Macchiato has a lot more milk than an Italian latte.  It’s always served in a glass here in Tübingen, which was sometimes true in Italy.

It’s also usually served with a plastic straw here in Tübingen. I never ever saw that in Italy.

So, a German Latte Macchiato is a hot coffee drink that you’re supposed to drink through a straw. There is a practical side to that, I suppose, since the glass it is served in has no handles,  and it is therefore a bit hot to pick up in your hands.  However, I find drinking a hot liquid through a plastic straw to be quite odd.

But, at least it does have the stronger coffee as the basis for the drink. But it has so much milk added to the coffee that essentially I find a Latte Macchiato to be really the same think as a Milchkaffee, except it’s made with espresso instead of German coffee. So, I will often get a Latte Macchiato if I’m out with friends at a cafe … and then set the straw aside to drink it. So, I rarely go out for “coffee” here – instead, I guess what I go for is a coffee-flavored milk break. 😉

Well, that’s true with one exception. Last year Chris and I went on vacation for a week in Barcelona. While there, we enjoyed a drink called in Spanish, cafe cortado. For all intents and purposes, a cafe cortado is the same as an Italian macchiato: a small cup of a strong espresso-like coffee, with a bit of milk added.

As we were walking through Tübingen’s city center one day shortly after that, we spotted a sign outside a little chocolate shop that also offered coffee drinks. On the menu, in addition to the usual lattes, etc., there was a Spanish cafe cortado. Which they made with our favorite Italian brand of coffee, LavAzza. So of course we had to try it. And what do you know – the cortado turned out to be the best cup of coffee we’d had at a cafe in Germany.

So the favorite coffee place in Tübingen for two Americans turns out to be a German cafe where we can get a Spanish espresso drink made with Italian coffee. That’s life in to Tübingen. You can’t get more international than that, eh?

Anyway, tomorrow, in the last of this week’s posts about drinking in Germany, I’ll finally turn to the beverage you’ve probably been expecting all week long.

What you might not anticipate, though, is how that drink will tie in to (almost) all of the other ones I’ve discussed the rest of the week.

See you tomorrow.