Desperately Seeking a Good Cappuccino in Paris

If nothing else, Paris is synonymous with cafés. Sitting at a table outside, sipping un expres (espresso) or cappuccino while watching the world pass by, is the quintessential Parisian experience. Pity that the coffee is so lousy. I tried two different cafés and ordered a cappuccino each time. In the first, the espresso was over-extracted and weak, but the milk was steamed fine.  In the second, the entire drink was much better, with better espresso flavor and a milk foam that was light and frothy. The price of a cappuccino sitting down is about 3.75 euros, or about $5.  French cafes have two prices for their drinks. The less expensive is for drinks ordered and consumed while standing at the bar. The second price is for drinks consumed while sitting at a table and the cost includes “rent” for the table for as long as one wants to sit.

By American standards the drinks are small. My cappuccino was about 10 ounces, served in a china cup.  With the exception of the dozen or so Starbucks in Paris, American style coffee drinks have not caught on here.  The very idea of a take-out drink seems to be anathema to the French; the size of drinks that Americans regularly consume is astonishing to locals. I tried explaining the different drink sizes to the man who installed the espresso machine that I am using at the Salon International de l’Alimentation (SIAL) trade show and his eyes got big as I translated 12-, 16-, and 24-ounce size drinks into metric. Where a standard unit of measure is a liter (about a quart), the idea of drinking three-fourths of a liter as a 24-ounce drink (700 ml here) caused his eyes to get big and his jaw to drop.  I could see he was thinking, “Crazy Americans!”

Tonight I am going to a café after dinner. I hope that my drink is better than the last few that I have had.  It’s Paris after all, home to thousands of cafés. I should be able to get a good drink in one of them.