An authentic Italian cappuccino needs half a cup of espresso and half a cup of foamed milk. You can also sprinkle cocoa powder or cinnamon powder on the milk for decoration to prevent the milk from peeling.
Making foamed milk is the key to making cappuccino. If you have an espresso machine, milk is not a problem. Just put the milk in a heat-resistant container (because the volume of milk will increase after foaming, so don't put too much milk to avoid overflowing), put the steam nozzle in the milk about 3 cm, and start the machine. When the foam surges, feel the temperature of the container by hand to ensure that the temperature is appropriate, because overheated milk will not foam. Note that low-fat milk is not easy to foam, and full-fat milk will mask the taste of coffee, so semi-skimmed milk is recommended.
If you don't have a machine, you must stir the milk with a pan and a blender or an eggbeater. It's best to put the pot on the fire and stir it while heating it. Rich, even small bubbles are the best cappuccino bubbles. If the bubbles you make are too big, you'd better keep beating them until they become smaller.
Finally, spoon the frothy milk on the espresso with a tablespoon, sprinkle with cocoa powder or cinnamon powder, or nothing at all, and a cup of cappuccino is ready.
Fanz George Kolschitsky, a Viennese, is the founder of Milk Coffee Cafe. In this issue, we will talk about the origin of cappuccino. Both of these drinks are made of coffee and milk, but the origin of cappuccino is more learned and has always been the best material for studying the changes of European and American characters.
The history of the word cappuccino shows that what a word often looks like is finally extended to other meanings, far beyond the original intention of the creator. Sounds complicated, please see the analysis below. Wearing a pointed hat, when St. Ji Fang's Church came to Italy, the local people thought the monks' clothes were special, so they were named cappuccino. In Italian, this word refers to the loose robes and small pointed hats worn by monks, which comes from the Italian "headscarf", that is, Cappuccio.
But Lao Yi loves coffee very much, and found that the color of strong coffee, milk and milk foam is very similar to the dark brown cassock worn by monks, so he had a brainwave and added coffee to the milk with sharp milk foam, named cappuccino. 1948, when a report in San Francisco first introduced cappuccino, the word was first used in English, and it didn't become a well-known coffee drink until 1990. It should be said that the word Cappuccino comes from Capuchin and Cappucio. I believe that the original word maker of cappuccino never dreamed that the monk's cassock would eventually become the name of a coffee and drink.
Cappuccino is also related to a monkey name.
The fun is not over yet. There is a little monkey in Africa with a pinch of black conical hair on its head, much like the small pointed hat on the cassock of St. Ji Fang's church. Therefore, this little monkey was named capuchin monkey, which was first used by the British in 1785. The names of capuchin monkeys, coffee, drinks and monkeys, which came into being a hundred years later, have always been an anecdote that scholars relish.
Dry cappuccino and wet cappuccino
Do you know that cappuccino can be drunk dry or wet? The so-called dry cappuccino refers to a conditioning method with more milk bubbles and less milk. Coffee tastes stronger than milk and is suitable for people with heavy tastes. When it comes to wet cappuccino, it refers to the practice of making more milk with less milk. The smell of milk outweighs the strong smell of coffee, which is suitable for people with light taste. Wet cappuccino tastes like a popular latte. Generally speaking, cappuccino tastes heavier than latte. If the taste is heavy, you can order cappuccino or dry cappuccino. If you are not used to the strong coffee flavor, you can order a latte or a wet cappuccino.