If you aren’t pressed for time, find a curious-looking café and order yourself a coffee; a REAL coffee. To us Americans, we’re used to Tim Hortons, Dunkin’ Donuts …the new Keurig brand, or worse yet, McDonald’s. Beurk. This is not real coffee. There’s no body, no existence to the flavor. This is brown water. ::Shrugg:: Apologies to my fast-food tycoon friends. Starbucks, you’re a bit better, but still…something is different. If you want to taste something that is made fresh each time it’s ordered, give you a zing both in energy and in spirit, find a brasserie or café and order up. “Un café” (uh(n) cah-fay) will be served to you, neatly on a saucer with an accompanying biscuit, usually a little gingerbread cookie. Enjoy this. Please don’t gulp it down. Find the richness in what it is.
If you’d like that black “American-style” coffee, order a café allongé (ah-lohn-zjay)…or “elongated coffee." If you think about it, it makes perfect sense. A café, or espresso, with added water thins out the coffee thus making it weaker, thus elongated.
If un café is too strong for you, like it is for me most times, and you’d prefer a bit of softness to your coffee, take a café crème – that’s your usual coffee with cream; only you don’t dictate 1, 2 or 3 creams or sugars. Instead, your coffee cup will come out to your half full with the base of a café and a baby pitcher of milk will follow up. Add however much sugar you want.
Whatever it is you order, be it something I mentioned or something else, take the time to enjoy the flavor and experience being in a café. Watch the people that go by. Immerse yourself in a book. Write down what you did the previous day in a journal. You may only be visiting for a couple days, but everyone will believe you’re a native.
The words I used are specific to France, but the equivalencies are in each country…you just need to figure out the distinctions.
If you’d like that black “American-style” coffee, order a café allongé (ah-lohn-zjay)…or “elongated coffee." If you think about it, it makes perfect sense. A café, or espresso, with added water thins out the coffee thus making it weaker, thus elongated.
If un café is too strong for you, like it is for me most times, and you’d prefer a bit of softness to your coffee, take a café crème – that’s your usual coffee with cream; only you don’t dictate 1, 2 or 3 creams or sugars. Instead, your coffee cup will come out to your half full with the base of a café and a baby pitcher of milk will follow up. Add however much sugar you want.
Whatever it is you order, be it something I mentioned or something else, take the time to enjoy the flavor and experience being in a café. Watch the people that go by. Immerse yourself in a book. Write down what you did the previous day in a journal. You may only be visiting for a couple days, but everyone will believe you’re a native.
The words I used are specific to France, but the equivalencies are in each country…you just need to figure out the distinctions.
A café and a croissant (kwah-SAHN): typically 2€ at a café in France
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