25 Ways Coffee Is Enjoyed Around The World

The historic origins of coffee itself go back to Ethiopia, where coffee preparation and consumption is still an important social ritual. In the Ethiopian coffee ceremony, bunna or buna, Amharic for coffee, is processed according to a procedure that takes two or three hours.

It's traditionally performed in the home up to three times per day and for important occasions to welcome guests. Beans are roasted and ground by hand before being blended with water and poured from a spouted vessel in a long stream. Ethiopian coffee is usually drunk black, sometimes with sugar, and may be flavored with spices or with salt, honey, or butter.

The coffeehouses of Vienna serve dozens of drinks that combine coffee with dairy, chocolate, liqueur, and other ingredients, but the most typical choice is the melange, made from coffee, milk, and milk foam. Italy's cappuccino is similar but uses only espresso and milk foam. While Italians consider cappuccinos and other milk coffee drinks to be morning beverages, Austrians enjoy melange at any time of day.

French "café viennois" and English "Viennese coffee" do not refer to the melange but to espresso topped with whipped cream. In Austria, this is called a Franziskaner ("Franciscan"), because the pale brown color resembles a Franciscan monk's robe, similar to how the cappuccino was named for the robes of Capuchin monks.

Senegalese café Touba gets its earthy, peppery flavors from an African spice called djar, and sometimes other spices like clove and cardamom. These are roasted and ground in a ratio of about one part spices to four parts coffee.

Named for the holy city of Touba and originally consumed by scholars, café Touba has become popular throughout Senegal and is even purported to have health benefits. At local snack stands called tanganas, street vendors prepare the coffee from start to finish, pouring it back and forth between containers to aerate it and selling it in small cups.

In Brazil, the cafezinho reigns supreme as the preferred way to enjoy the beverage. Synonymous with hospitality, cafezinho literally means "a little coffee" and is similar to the standard coffee preparations in other Latin American countries, such as Cuba and Colombia.

Finely ground coffee is added directly to a pot of boiling water, in which unrefined cane sugar, known as panela or rapadura, has been dissolved. Once the coffee brews, it is filtered through paper or, more traditionally, cloth, and served. Cafezinho is brewed strong and commonly served black, but some people add a bit of cream or milk.

In Turkey, both tea and coffee are popular beverages, but while tea is enjoyed all day, coffee is served in the afternoon or following a large meal. The drink is brewed individually in a special kettle called a cezve.

Turkish coffee relies on extra finely-powdered coffee beans, which results in a different flavor than espresso. Another key difference is that Turkish coffee is made by boiling grounds in a specialized boiler over heated sand, whereas espresso is made by forcing heated water through the grounds. Turkish coffee is unfiltered, so the grounds must be allowed to settle before the thick coffee can be drunk, and there is a custom of reading the fortunes of drinkers in the grounds at the bottom of the cup. It may be enhanced with spices or sugar and is typically served alongside water and a sweet treat.

Today, Vietnam is one of the world's largest exporters of coffee, but coffee was first introduced in the 19th century during French colonial rule when French coffee drinkers lacking access to fresh dairy started using tinned condensed milk in their café au lait. The result was the sweet, refreshing drink that English speakers call "Vietnamese coffee," cà phê sữa đá in Vietnamese, which literally means "iced coffee with milk."

It's traditionally brewed with a single-serving press called a phin, which drips the coffee into the condensed milk at the bottom of the glass, after which the mixture is stirred and poured over ice. Both fresh and condensed milk are used in a variation called bạc xỉu.

Yuenyeung is the Cantonese name for the colorful bird known in English as the Mandarin duck. This drink may have gotten its name from the duck's association with marriage and fidelity because yuenyeung is a harmonious marriage of two beverages: coffee and tea.

A blend of the Eastern and Western cultural elements that merged in the 20th century during British colonial rule of Hong Kong, yuenyeung can be found at teahouses throughout Hong Kong today. A Hong Kong cafe called Lan Fong Yuen claims to have invented the drink in 1952, using three parts coffee to seven parts milk tea, but the exact ratio varies.

Sour, bitter, and sweet flavors come together in the Portuguese Mazagran, an iced mixture of coffee or espresso, water, and lemon juice. It may be lightly sweetened or spiked with rum.

Mazagran takes its name from an Algerian town and is said to have been invented by French soldiers in Algeria in the 1830s or '40s. Unable to mix coffee with milk or brandy due to rationing, the soldiers began drinking their coffee with water and later brought this custom back to Paris. Even as the Mazagran's popularity faded in Paris, it spread to other parts of Europe and different countries added their own spin, including Portugal's coffee lemonade.

Irish coffee begins with a mixture of Irish whiskey, coffee, and sugar. Sugar syrup is recommended over other forms of sugar because it dissolves faster and allows more room for other ingredients. Double cream is carefully poured on top to form a distinct layer, and the coffee/whiskey mixture is sipped through the cream. It's called a Highland coffee when made with Scotch whisky, or a Kentucky coffee when made with bourbon.

There are so many foods with misleading geographic names that you might be surprised to learn that Irish coffee really was invented in Ireland, in 1943. The cocktail attracted international attention in the early 1950s when the Buena Vista Hotel in San Francisco became the first establishment to sell Irish coffee in the U.S.

The milkshake-like Frappuccino, common in the U.S. at chains like Starbucks, is made by blending coffee, milk, ice, and flavored syrups. But don't confuse this beverage with the similarly-named frappe, which is more popular as a summertime beverage in Europe, especially in Greece where it originated.

Unlike the Frappuccino, the frappe may or may not include milk and usually has no additional flavorings. The base is a foamy mix of sugar and instant coffee, which whips into a froth similar to dalgona coffee. In some variations, this foam is blended with the ice, but the original frappe was made by pouring the coffee foam over ice cubes. Frappe is said to have been invented at a tradeshow in Thessaloniki, Greece in 1957, by a Nescafé salesman who added instant coffee and ice to a shaker meant for a children's chocolate drink.

Qahwa is traditionally made using a tapered coffee pot called a dallah, which can vary in design depending on which country it comes from. Different countries also favor different roasting levels, with southeastern Arab countries producing the lightest, such as Yemen's "white coffee." Qahwa may be roasted and ground with spices, but spices are also added to the dallah as the coffee brews, especially cardamom.

As Arab merchants helped spread coffee to the world in the 15th and 16th centuries, an elaborate custom of serving coffee to guests developed, similar to practices in Turkey and Ethiopia. The dallah is used to pour the dark, spice-infused coffee into small cups without handles called fenjals.

Though originally French, café au lait is popular throughout Europe, with different countries having their own variations. In the Netherlands, it's always served with a cookie and made with equal parts coffee and milk, earning the local nickname of "wrong coffee" because it contains more milk than Dutch-style coffee drinks.

The combination of drip coffee with heated milk sets the café au lait apart from similar drinks like the café latte, made with espresso and milk, or the Italian cappuccino and Austrian melange, made with milk foam. Depending on the equipment, heating the milk may create a micro foam that provides a velvety texture. Heating also increases the solubility of the milk's sugar, making it slightly sweeter.

Around the world, there are several types of coffee known as "white," such as Malaysia's Ipoh white coffee, made with beans that have been roasted in margarine. In Yemen, white coffee refers to another distinctive roasting process. Whereas coffee beans are usually roasted at a temperature between 450 degrees Fahrenheit and 480 degrees Fahrenheit, white coffee beans are roasted at 325 degrees Fahrenheit for about half the time.

This results in a pale beige bean that is too hard to grind with typical at-home coffee grinders, so it's often sold pre-ground, and may also be mixed with a local spice blend called hawaij. Compared with darker roasts, white coffee has a milder, less bitter flavor, more of certain nutrients, and (according to some) more caffeine.