Que sera, sera, whatever will be, will be, but first I need more coffee.

Tag: café renversé

Café Renversé

In a previous post I mentioned a coffee drink called a café renversé (literally spilled coffee). It’s a café au lait with a bit more milk. I managed to recreate it by accident. I think I made a reasonable facsimile. So here’s how if you want to give it a try.

I brewed a medium roast coffee (1 tbsp per 6 oz water). Then I heated a 1/3 of a cup of whole milk in the microwave for 30 seconds. I poured it into my coffee cup. Then I added an equal portion of coffee. I put in a teaspoon of sugar and voila. It’s not made the same way in Geneva but the taste and texture are very close. If you decided to try it, don’t make a big honkin’ mug of it. The coffee drinks in Europe are served in much smaller portions. Maybe fill your coffee mug about 2/3 of the way total.

Genève

Je voudrais, café renversé, s’il vous plait.

A café renversé (hat tip to @tobie for telling me about thi... on Twitpic

I love Twitter. It’s the wild west of social media. You can say almost anything, read almost anything. I’ve met a lot of great people through it. And best of all I got to meet some of those people in person. Some are local. Some are as far flung as California and Switzerland. And this last meeting was with a young programmer I found on Twitter who lived in Geneva. I wanted to follow people in Geneva that also shared my profession. Anyway, I found Tobie. We met at Parc de Bastions for a beer. He gave me some good insights on what to try. He told me the sad state of affairs with finding local beers in bars. The big Swiss companies gain exclusive access to lock out the better beers. He also made a recommendation on what coffee drinks to try.

He suggested a café renversé, it’s a Swiss or rather Genevan take on the café au lait (coffee with milk)—white coffee in the European parlance. It was very good. European portions are smaller than ours. I did go to a Starkbucks and had an American sized coffee that cost me nearly $7US, proportionally was on par with the Swiss coffee prices.

Why am I focusing on coffee of all the things I’ve done in Switzerland on this trip? It’s the little pleasures that can enhance such a journey and be shared more readily. We went on a magnificent train ride through the Alps and that was a large pleasure, but you cannot share a large pleasure the way you can share a small one. As for a café renversé you might persuade your local barista to make one for you or to figure it out yourself.

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