Café Frappe, Greek coffee, and Nes

Let’s head south to sunny and warm Greece. Greek coffee, café frappé and a mocha dominate the coffee scene here. If you simply order a coffee in Greece, you will get a Nes instead of the classic black coffee crema as we know it in Germany. Nes is what the Greeks call instant coffee that is simply dissolved in hot water. The name derives from Nestlé’s Nescafé brand, which accounts for the majority of the types of instant coffee available in Greece.

These are the most popular coffee specialties of the Greeks

The café frappé, called frappé for short, is the well-known cold drink of the Greeks. Especially in summer, when it gets really hot in Greece, the frappé is particularly popular. Cold coffee, which we associate with iced coffee in Germany, differs from café frappé in that it is cooled with ice cubes instead of a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

The café frappé is prepared by shaking the Nes together with some cold water and sugar in a cocktail shaker until it is foamy. The frothed coffee is poured into a tall frappé glass and filled with ice cubes and cold water. Depending on taste, cream or condensed milk can be added. Alternatively, a frappé frother can be used.

Greek coffee was originally called Turkish coffee because the Turks first brought the hot beverage to Greece. Today they differ in that, unlike Turkish coffee, Greek coffee is usually only boiled twice. Traditionally, a long-handled jug, the briki, is used for the preparation.

The Greeks still really enjoy their coffee in one of the many small cafés. On average, the Greek spends around forty minutes a day in a café. It is completely normal to linger over a cup of coffee that you have ordered in a café, while we Germans are used to ordering more.