Viennese Melange Coffee

A Wiener Melange is a Viennese coffeehouse classic: half a cup of coffee and half a cup of steamed milk, topped with milk foam. Milder than a cappuccino, it tastes round and soft, with a gentle coffee flavor under the milk and foam.

Origin & Story

Melange means mixture, and in Vienna it is the everyday milky coffee: half a cup of brewed coffee and half a cup of steamed milk, with a cap of milk foam on top. That is how the well-known Viennese Café Sperl describes it.

It is close to a cappuccino, but the coffee is milder, so the drink is gentler and the milk is more present. It is not the same as a Franziskaner, which is espresso topped with whipped cream, or the French café viennois, which is also espresso with whipped cream. A Kapuziner, another Viennese drink, takes its name from the brown robes of the Capuchin friars, like the cappuccino. Some commercial versions of the melange are blended with cocoa, but the traditional drink does not need it.

Vienna's coffeehouses are part of the city's identity. Since 2011 Viennese coffeehouse culture has been listed in Austria's national inventory of intangible cultural heritage. A traditional coffeehouse serves coffee on a small tray with a glass of water, and lets you keep your table for as long as you like.

At home, a close version is easy to make. Pull a single shot, 9 g of coffee into about 18 g, lengthen it with about 100 ml of hot water for a milder cup, and add about 120 ml of steamed milk with a cap of foam. Cafés vary, and the old way uses brewed coffee instead of espresso.

Reading the Flavor Profile

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