Frappé coffee

Frappé redirects here. For the musical term see Downbeat

File:Frappe-2.jpg

A tall glass of frappé

Greek frappé is a drink derived from freeze dried instant coffee that is consumed cold. It is very popular in Greece especially during summer but also found in other countries.

History of the Greek frappé

Frappé dates back to the 1957 International Trade Fair in Thessaloniki. The representative of the Nestlé company, Yiannis Dritsas, was exhibiting a new product for children, a chocolate beverage produced instantly by mixing it with milk and shaking it in a shaker. Dritsas' employee Vakondios was looking for a way to have his usual instant coffee during his break but he could not find any hot water. So he made the decision to use cold water and a shaker, creating the first frappé coffee.

Since then, the product has been marketed chiefly by Nestlé and has had great success in Greece. More recently, Kraft, under the Jacobs label, have launched their own brand of frappé.

Frappé in other parts of the world

Frappé is also consumed in Cyprus, Thailand, Malaysia, Turkey, and in recent years Balkan immigrants in Turks have taken frappé to their homelands, where it has been adopted with some differences. In Bulgaria, Coca-cola is sometimes used instead of water, and in Serbia, ice-cream is always added. In Italy, an iced-coffee called cappuccino fréddo has emerged, which has also become very popular in Greece.

The word frappé is french and means shaken. In France a frappé is a milkshake beverage produced by mixing milk or fruit juices in a shaker without coffee and thus it has no relationship to Greek frappé. In New England, a frappé contains ice cream.

Frappé variations

Frappé comes in various tastes, determined by the amount of coffee, sugar or milk used.

A frappé glykós (IPA /ɣli'kos/) is sweet, a métrios is medium, and a skétos contains no sugar. A frappé gala (/'ɣala/) or φραπόγαλο frapógalo (/fra'poɣalo/) comes with milk, a frappé horis gala without milk.

Some people use Kahlua or other coffee liqueurs, like Baileys Irish Cream

Greeks and frappé

Frappé has become the national coffee of Greece. The average Greek will spend over an hour at a coffeeshop having a frappé. In Greece, people usually say "let's go for a coffee" instead of "let's go for a drink" and most of friendly meetings are over frappé glasses. Since frappé is always accompanied with tap water, after they have finished their coffee, some Greeks will put some of the water to the frappé glass and stir with the straw in order to prolong the frappé drinking ritual, although some other consider this a bad habit. Since most Greeks are smokers, the combination of "frappé ké tsigáro" (frappé and cigarette) can be seen everywhere. In fact this is sometimes jokingly characterised as "the Greek breakfast".

Due to the above, Frappe is artistically the symbol of laziness and time consumption. The lazy neo-Greek archetype will be depicted in pop art with a frappe in hand.

It's not an uncommon phenomenon, when Greeks travel abroad to ask (sometimes demand) for frappe in coffee shops, being certain that frappe is, like in Greece, a common beverage (which is not). More confusion arises, when Greeks travel to France and being confident enough that since "frappe is a French word", it should, naturally, be served in French coffee shops. Of course, this is not the case.

Dosology

Greeks are usually very precise on the quantity of sugar and coffee they want in their frappé. If they ask for sweet and they get anything less, they complain that the frappé is "dhilitirio" (poison) and if they ask for medium and they get anything sweeter for their taste, they complain that the frappé is "petimezi" (molasses). Also if the frappé is not strong enough they complain that it is "nerozoumi" (water-broth) and if there's too much coffee they say it is "dhinamitis" (dynamite). Therefore many specify the exact number of teaspoons (or even half-teaspoons) of sugar/coffee they want.

A general (but definitely not universally accepted) rule is: skétos: 0 teaspoons, métrios: 1 to 1.5 teaspoons, glykós: 2 to 3 teaspoons.

Template:Cookbookpar