A dark, rich cup of coffee creme, please!

October 30, 2009 6:40 AM

What makes European coffee different from American coffee?

While in Europe the other week, I was reminded about how much different their coffee is from ours in America - darker, thicker, richer. I often saw it listed as "Kaffee Kreme" on menus, and regular "drip" style coffee seemed to be nonexistent.

I'd like to recreate that style of coffee at home, but I'm not sure how. It seemed almost, but not exactly, like a large espresso - but espressos were also on the menu, so it seems obvious that it's something different. What's the secret?

I have a normal drip coffee maker, a French press, and a stovetop "Tassimo" pot - can I make European coffee with these? Do I need other equipment?

Bonus: the single serve coffee machines I saw there were awesome - pick a coffee drink and the machine grinds beans and gives you a perfect brew, none of this K-cup crap. Is there anywhere I can buy one of those in the States?

posted by backseatpilot to food & drink (31 comments total)

In the absence of an actual crazy-expensive espresso machine, the Italian-born members of both sides of my family will turn to a Bialetti moka pot. While the coffee is brewing in that, they’ll heat up milk in a saucepan. Combine the two and cook for a bit, and you get what they call a caffèlatte. That and some small baked good makes breakfast.
posted by Garak at 6:50 AM on October 30 [1 favorite has favorites]

Get thee to coffeegeek, they'll opine you to death as to what kind of coffee you drank and how to reproduce it. In the process, they'll try to convince you that you need a 4000 $ espresso machine made by LaMarzocco and a 2000 $ coffee grinder by Mahlkoenig. Then, a Behmor coffee roaster (or a second hand Probat).

But anyway.

I'm guessing that a lot of coffees you drank must have been some kind of Senseo (single serve pod system) coffees.
posted by NekulturnY at 6:51 AM on October 30 [1 favorite has favorites]

Oops, sorry, it's a Bialetti that I have, not a Tassimo. And it certainly was not pod coffee - the machines that I saw all had whole, unground beans in hoppers that were used to make individual cups.
posted by backseatpilot at 6:53 AM on October 30

Then you're looking for bean to cup machines, probably Schaerer if you were in a German speaking region.
posted by NekulturnY at 6:58 AM on October 30

Europe is a rather diverse place. Regular 'indigenous' coffee in scandinavia is different from regular coffee in Germany or France. And of course Italian style coffee is different. So if you tell us a bit more we can give you better advice.
So: in what European country did you get this coffee and under what name is it on the menu?
posted by jouke at 6:58 AM on October 30 [1 favorite has favorites]

I'd say you might be looking at beans roasted using a Torrefacto process, if you're talking France, Spain, Portugal. I love it myself.
posted by Stewriffic at 7:01 AM on October 30

I love coffeegeek I also like I need coffee. Between the two, you should find some info about how to make what you want.
posted by patheral at 7:02 AM on October 30

These are the machines you're thinking of; maybe if some of the manufacturers are names you recognise, you could look up whether they also sell into the States.

Capresso seems to be the US version of the Jura brand, we have a Jura machine in our office (in the UK) and it works very well.
posted by emilyw at 7:03 AM on October 30

I was in Belgium, the Netherlands, and Germany, and what I got was referred to (usually) as "kaffee kreme" or some variation of that. Asking for a "regular coffee" or "normal coffee" got me the same thing.
posted by backseatpilot at 7:08 AM on October 30

Try ordering an Americano here in states sometime. It IS basically a large espresso - a shot or two is dumped in a cup of hot water. Though it will look like a drip coffee, it tends to have roughly half the caffeine, along with a richer, smoother taste and feel. I'd bet that's close to what you had.

There's a reason for the name. :)
posted by kcm at 7:21 AM on October 30

Cafe creme is just what it sounds like - coffee (usually espresso) served with hot cream. An espresso would, presumably, come plain.
posted by muddgirl at 7:29 AM on October 30

I know nothing about coffee but it might be something to do with the bean as well. A quick googling for "Kaffee Kreme" brings up this page which seems to indicate Kaffee Kreme is a style of bean
posted by missmagenta at 7:33 AM on October 30

Maybe you were getting lungo shots of espresso with cream? A lungo shot produces more volume that the standard shot, so it would be like a "large espresso." Go ask for a lungo at a good coffee shop and see if it's close (go into Starbucks and ask for it, and the barista will look at you funny and ask if you mean a venti).
posted by slow graffiti at 7:46 AM on October 30

I guess that looking into small-batch freshly roasted not too dark upscale blends and using the right quantities and temperatures would already improve your drip coffee.
Even more important is good water. US water (and, as I recently found out, some UK water as well) occasionally tastes like chloride, which kills any sort of tea and coffee. Get a water filter (like Brita).

Two tricks, as told by a Dutch coffee house owner, for good filter coffee [as one would call it over here]:
1) add the tiniest pinch of salt to the ground coffee*. My guess about why this might be good is that it helps the water to penetrate the grind quicker, but I have nothing to back this up.
2) fill the filter by hand, from a kettle with boiling water and do this about three or four times. When the sinking wet coffee develops a totally smooth surface, this is a sign that it becomes worked out. Keeping pouring hot water on top results in a papery and bitter taste. Better add fresh hot water to the coffee itself until the desired strength has been reached.
Obviously, both techniques require a bit of testing before they work securely.

I personally prefer Italianate ways of processing coffee, using a bunch of stainless steel moka pots of various sizes (aluminum adds a funny taste). Keep the seals painfully clean. Fill the pot until a mm or so below the safety valve, using cold water. Fill the coffee compartment entirely with just-below-medium-finely ground high-end quite dark (but not ridiculously so) coffee. Don't press it down, though. Screw top part on really tightly. Process on low heat for best tasting results.

The French press, in my opinion, is no way to go (It is actually fairly common in Europe, as the name suggests. Hum. The most common "French" pot comes from Denmark). The first impression-by-smells may be "wow", but it always has that funny papery taste, it is quite rough on one's stomach, and I hate the grit towards the end of the pot.

You obviously can add "creme" to any kind of good coffee.

*and tell nobody. A family member was enthusiastic about my coffee, and when I told him my "trick" he pulled a face and said "I thought it tasted a bit salty". It doesn't.
posted by Namlit at 8:00 AM on October 30

It's the actual coffee, not just the machine. (granted, the bialetti's are awesome, just make sure you get a stainless steel one, not an aluminum one!)

Try buying better quality coffee. Beans are better than already ground - the oils in coffee very slowly but surely begin to go rancid once they're roasted and exposed to oxygen. I wouldn't try roasting my own beans, unless you've got A LOT of time on your hands. Personally, I like the Italian brands. Stay far away from folgers and those other crappy supermarket Columbian coffees that are neither ground nor roasted properly. The best coffee-maker on the planet couldn't make that stuff taste good.

And never, under any circumstance, buy flavored coffee! They came up with that idea to sell off hideous-quality, low-altitude-grown coffee for a profit. Always get high-altitude coffee!
posted by Neekee at 8:22 AM on October 30

Try buying better quality coffee. Beans are better than already ground - the oils in coffee very slowly but surely begin to go rancid once they're roasted and exposed to oxygen. I wouldn't try roasting my own beans, unless you've got A LOT of time on your hands. Personally, I like the Italian brands.


Bears repeating. I recommend Illy or Segafredo. Buy the beans in the plastic vacuum packs or cans.

A case (8 bags) will run you between $150 and $200.
posted by Zambrano at 8:38 AM on October 30

.. and don't use tap water (US).
posted by Zambrano at 8:39 AM on October 30

Personally, I like the Italian brands.

I don't agree with this advice. You have to see roasted coffee as food, more particularly: like bread. While green beans can last half a year if stored correctly, roasted coffee will go stale in one or two weeks. Even beans in vacuum cans will suffer from prolonged storage. If possible, buy your coffee from a local roaster.

I wouldn't try roasting my own beans, unless you've got A LOT of time on your hands.

Sorry, but this is nonsense. I roast my beans in the Behmor, and it takes me exactly 20 minutes for a full pound of freshly roasted coffee per week. It's cheap, it's trivially easy, and 20 minutes is not a LOT of times. I drink espresso, which uses a lot of coffee per cup. If you drink drip coffee, a pound would probably last you two weeks. Incidentally, coffee goes stale after at most two weeks.

There's a wonderful website called SweetMarias, where you can buy bags and bags of fresh green coffee varieties at competitive prices (they also do roasted, by the way).

Two easy ways to drastically improve your coffee would be:
1. Buy freshly roasted coffee from a roaster in your neighbourhood (or via the internet).
2. Buy whole beans. Get a grinder to grind your beans freshly. Once you've smelled fresh coffee grounds, you'll never go back to preground.

If you want to geek out:
3. Homeroast.
4. Get shiny espresso gear.
posted by NekulturnY at 9:14 AM on October 30 [1 favorite has favorites]

Bears repeating. I recommend Illy or Segafredo. Buy the beans in the plastic vacuum packs or cans.

Bears refuting. Italian beans are invariably stale by the time they get to NA. You want to buy beans not more than, say, 2 weeks post roast (and that's if they're packaged in sealed bags- I made the mistake of getting some JJ Bean espresso last week that was sold in crimped, but open, paper bags and even though it was only 11 days post roast, it was stale), and that means roasted locally or roasted somewhere on this continent but that uses a reliable supply chain. I'm happy to buy roasted-in-Chicago Intelligentsia here in Calgary because I can get it 3 days post roast despite the distance. The Italian crap you're recommending is overpriced and will be MONTHS post roast by the time you get it.

DO NOT BUY EUROPEAN COFFEES IN NORTH AMERICA.
posted by ethnomethodologist at 10:10 AM on October 30

Look, if you are new to making good coffee, don't get intimidated by all these suggestions, excellent though they may be.

First off, go get yourself some freshly ground beans - try your local cafe - and pack your stovetop espresso maker with them. If you have a water filter, use filtered water in the espresso maker. Otherwise, just fresh cold tap water is fine. Don't overfill - you want this to be strong. Heat a little half and half in a small pan. Don't let it boil.
When the espresso is ready, pour it into a coffee cup and add cream to taste: voila, kaffe creme, aka cafe creme, aka cafe crema.
posted by CunningLinguist at 11:27 AM on October 30

....freshly ground beans in a dark roast, I forgot to say.
posted by CunningLinguist at 11:28 AM on October 30

I was wondering this after just being in Germany myself. It's definitely not coffee with cream (although that is what I thought it would be the first time I ordered it).

As far as I can tell it's the type of bean. From what I can gather (using lame translation tools) it's been roasted slowly at a lower temperature for longer (uh I think). But I was planning on asking a German friend so if I hear different I'll add that here.
posted by grapesaresour at 11:37 AM on October 30

No, I agree that this cup has no cream in it - in fact, I thought the "kreme" part of the name referred to the crema on top of the coffee.

Probably goes with different ideas about coffee - America tends to drift towards large, weak cups and Europe goes for smaller, richer brews.
posted by backseatpilot at 12:09 PM on October 30

I think I know what you're talking about and it seems like it's long shot of espresso using medium roast bean. This was a while ago, but the only way I could reproduce that taste/style was by using the coffee I had brought back from Germany. It was a fairly common brand called Jacob's. I sorta gave up on reproducing it after I ran out of the Jacob's because it seems like beans are just roasted differently in the US.
posted by mandymanwasregistered at 12:34 PM on October 30

Buy small brands of coffee. Here on long island (they also serve little italy in nyc) there is a brand called moka d'oro that rocks. Much better then the name brand stuff.

Also a lot of those coffee makers that keep the beans and grind when needed can make your beans go bad. The best way is to grind them yourself right before making the coffee.

Alton Brown has a great episode just on coffee alone. (good eats rocks).
posted by majortom1981 at 12:55 PM on October 30

Traditional German coffee is actually very similar to the dreadful American "large, weak cups" you mention. We call it "Filterkaffee", it's usually prepared with Jacobs, Tchibo or Melitta brands. It's what your grandma would serve.

It's not what most people drink, though. About a decade ago, Germany basically went Italian in the coffee department. So restaurants/cafés now usually have Italian coffee (i.e. italian beans & espresso machine method instead of drip). I don't know a single place here (Munich) which still serves "old-fashioned" drip coffee, it's espresso everywhere I go. Even if you order "Kaffee", you get a (big) Espresso.
A typical "italian-style" German coffee brand used in restaurants is Hausbrandt. I love Lavazza, also often served at cafés.

I've never heard "Kaffee Kreme", but to me that sounds very much like a reference to "crema", i.e. the fluffy stuff on top of italian espresso-style coffee. You get crema by
1. adding robusta beans to your usual arabica bean mixture
2. grinding the coffee very finely (i.e., espresso-style).

It's true that you can enhance the taste of your coffee by buying freshly roasted beans, grinding them yourself, using good water etc.... but if you're coming from US-typical "coffee" (which is basically hot water), even age-old espresso powder cooked up in a rusty moka pot will be an enormous improvement, tastewise.
posted by The Toad at 2:22 PM on October 30

Traditional German coffee is actually very similar to the dreadful American "large, weak cups" you mention. We call it "Filterkaffee", it's usually prepared with Jacobs, Tchibo or Melitta brands. It's what your grandma would serve

Ooooh but. My grandma served the upscale blends from Tschibo right from the shop (this was Bremen in the seventies) and made it strong enough to keep a bunch of other grandmas alive and squeaking throughout Sundays of severe cream cake attacks; the stuff made my heart skip but it was really good. The filter (as stated above, not my choice) is not the problem per se, and not (necessarily) the brand name either. But there are, and here we come closer to the downs of German coffee lore, quite some differences between German grandmas. Look at the Saxonian Blümchenkaffe, which is so weak that you can see the flower decoration at the bottom inside the cup, or its weaker brother Schwerterkaffee, where you can see through the cup and discern the crossed-swords sign of the Meissen porcelain factory, stamped on the bottom.
posted by Namlit at 2:40 PM on October 30 [2 favorites has favorites]

I don't agree with this advice. You have to see roasted coffee as food, more particularly: like bread. While green beans can last half a year if stored correctly, roasted coffee will go stale in one or two weeks.


Italian beans are invariably stale by the time they get to NA.

The Italian crap you're recommending is overpriced and will be MONTHS post roast by the time you get it.

DO NOT BUY EUROPEAN COFFEES IN NORTH AMERICA.


They come in vacuum packs. It almost looks like a giant blister-pack.

That way they don't go stale.

And it's what you call "overpriced" for a reason: it's superior to any coffee you can buy in NA.
posted by Zambrano at 8:16 AM on October 31

They come in vacuum packs. It almost looks like a giant blister-pack.

That way they don't go stale.

And it's what you call "overpriced" for a reason: it's superior to any coffee you can buy in NA.

Yeah yeah, but: no.

Buy some roasted stuff from Sweet Maria's, and I guarantee you that the quality will be a lot better than anything you can get in a vacuum pack. There's absolutely no reason other than snobbery to ship coffee across the Atlantic.

The green coffee is sourced from South America, Africa, Java, Indonesia etc. either in NA or in Europe. The roasting process is exactly the same on both sides of the pond. You can roast to a light roast, a medium dark roast, or a dark one. You can carbonise your beans, that's what Starbucks does, but it's not recommended.

Coffee is roasted in 12 to 20 minutes, there's not a lot of wiggle room, you see. Not like wine, where you can choose from ten techniques for vinification and another twelve for storage and ripening.
posted by NekulturnY at 8:41 AM on October 31

Café Crème is apparently (link in Dutch) a classical Swiss recipe for coffee. It has the crema of high pressure preparation just like espresso. But it is made using more water and a light roast.
posted by jouke at 2:32 PM on October 31

They come in vacuum packs. It almost looks like a giant blister-pack.

That way they don't go stale.

And it's what you call "overpriced" for a reason: it's superior to any coffee you can buy in NA.

Sorry, that's totally untrue. There's no reason why columbian beans roasted in an Italian roaster in America are any different than columbian beans roasted in an Italian roaster in Europe. Granted, there are all kinds of roasts, and every single one of them is done in the US, somewhere. Add to that the fact that no one has any idea how long beans have sat around in the warehouse before being vacuum packed, and the fact that there is no way to know what sort of temperature fluctuations in transit occurred, and anyone who care about the taste of coffee is not going to waste their time on mass produced coffee imported from overseas. (Ditto anything in a pod, even if it is produced in America.)
posted by oneirodynia at 7:36 PM on October 31