Frappé coffee is a Greek

Greeks

The Greeks, also known as the Hellenes , are a nation and ethnic group native to Greece, Cyprus and neighboring regions. They also form a significant diaspora, with Greek communities established around the world....

 foam

Foam

-Definition:A foam is a substance that is formed by trapping gas in a liquid or solid in a divided form, i.e. by forming gas regions inside liquid regions, leading to different kinds of dispersed media...

-covered iced coffee

Iced coffee

Iced coffee is a cold variant of the beverage coffee.-Preparation:There are several ways of preparing iced coffee. Ordinary hot-brewed coffee can be served cold, although this may result in a bitter-tasting product. Cold brewing relies on time, rather than heat, to transfer the coffee flavor to the...

 drink made from instant coffee

Instant coffee

Instant coffee, also called soluble coffee and coffee powder, is a beverage derived from brewed coffee beans. Instant coffee is commercially prepared by either freeze-drying or spray drying, after which it can be rehydrated...

 (generally, spray-dried

Spray drying

Spray drying is a method of producing a dry powder from a liquid or slurry by rapidly drying with a hot gas. This is the preferred method of drying of many thermally-sensitive materials such as foods and pharmaceuticals. A consistent particle size distribution is a reason for spray drying some...

). It is very popular in Greece

Greece

Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....

 and Cyprus

Cyprus

Cyprus , officially the Republic of Cyprus , is a Eurasian island country, member of the European Union, in the Eastern Mediterranean, east of Greece, south of Turkey, west of Syria and north of Egypt. It is the third largest island in the Mediterranean Sea.The earliest known human activity on the...

, especially during the summer, but has now spread to other countries. The frappé became a hallmark of the post-war outdoor Greek coffee culture

Coffee culture

Coffee culture describes a social atmosphere or series of associated social behaviors that depends heavily upon coffee, particularly as a social lubricant. The term also refers to the diffusion and adoption of coffee as a widely consumed stimulant by a culture...

.

Name

In French

French language

French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

, when describing a drink, the word frappé means chilled; and indeed there was an American dish called café frappé, a sort of coffee granita

Granita

Granita is a semi-frozen dessert made from sugar, water and various flavorings. Originally from Sicily, although available all over Italy , it is related to sorbet and italian ice. However, in most of Sicily, it has a coarser, more crystalline texture...

. However, in the name café frappé, frappé is interpreted as 'shaken'.

History

Frappé dates back to the 1957 International Trade Fair in Thessaloniki. The representative of the Nestlé

Nestlé

Nestlé S.A. is the world's largest food and nutrition company. Founded and headquartered in Vevey, Switzerland, Nestlé originated in a 1905 merger of the Anglo-Swiss Milk Company, established in 1867 by brothers George Page and Charles Page, and Farine Lactée Henri Nestlé, founded in 1866 by Henri...

 company, Yannis Dritsas, was exhibiting a new product for children, a chocolate beverage produced instantly by mixing it with milk and shaking it in a shaker

Cocktail shaker

A cocktail shaker is a device used to mix beverages by shaking. When ice is put in the shaker this allows for a quicker cooling of the drink before serving....

. Dritsas' employee Dimitris Vakondios was looking for a way to have his usual instant coffee

Instant coffee

Instant coffee, also called soluble coffee and coffee powder, is a beverage derived from brewed coffee beans. Instant coffee is commercially prepared by either freeze-drying or spray drying, after which it can be rehydrated...

 during his break but he could not find any hot water, so he mixed the coffee with cold water and a shaker.

This improvised experiment established this popular Greek beverage. Frappé has been marketed chiefly by Nestlé and is among the most popular drinks in Greece. More recently, Kraft

Kraft Foods

Kraft Foods Inc. is an American confectionery, food and beverage conglomerate. It markets many brands in more than 170 countries. 12 of its brands annually earn more than $1 billion worldwide: Cadbury, Jacobs, Kraft, LU, Maxwell House, Milka, Nabisco, Oscar Mayer, Philadelphia, Trident, Tang...

, under the Jacobs

Jacobs (coffee)

Jacobs is a brand of coffee that traces its beginnings to 1895 in Germany by Iohann Jacobs and is today marketed in Europe by Kraft Foods. Major markets are Austria, the Baltic countries, Macedonia, Bulgaria, Serbia, the Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Azerbaijan,...

 label, have launched their own brand of frappé. Frappé has been called the national coffee of Greece, and is available at virtually all cafés.

Preparation

The coffee can be made either with a cocktail shaker

Cocktail shaker

A cocktail shaker is a device used to mix beverages by shaking. When ice is put in the shaker this allows for a quicker cooling of the drink before serving....

 or an appropriate mixer (e.g. a hand mixer). One or two teaspoons of coffee, sugar (to taste) and a little water are blended to form a foam, which is poured into a tall glass. To this is added cold water and ice cubes, and, optionally, milk - typically evaporated milk. The glass is served with a drinking straw

Drinking straw

A drinking straw is a short tube intended for transferring a beverage from its container to the mouth of the drinker by use of suction. A thin tube of plastic or other material, straight or with an accordion-like living hinge, it is employed by being held with one end in the mouth and another end...

.

Frothy top

The spray-dried instant coffee contains nearly no oil, just tiny particles (coffee solids), some molecules responsible for flavor and taste, and caffeine

Caffeine

Caffeine is a bitter, white crystalline xanthine alkaloid that acts as a stimulant drug. Caffeine is found in varying quantities in the seeds, leaves, and fruit of some plants, where it acts as a natural pesticide that paralyzes and kills certain insects feeding on the plants...

. When dissolved, spray-dried coffee forms a simpler and more stable colloid

Colloid

A colloid is a substance microscopically dispersed evenly throughout another substance.A colloidal system consists of two separate phases: a dispersed phase and a continuous phase . A colloidal system may be solid, liquid, or gaseous.Many familiar substances are colloids, as shown in the chart below...

 relative to traditionally brewed coffee. This enables creation of the characteristic thick frothy layer at the top of the coffee. This layer appears similar to crema, the foam found in espresso

Espresso

Espresso is a concentrated beverage brewed by forcing a small amount of nearly boiling water under pressure through finely ground coffee. Espresso is widely known throughout the world....

, but is much thicker and the composition is different. It can be characterized mainly as a three phase colloid where tiny bubbles are held together by the coffee

Coffee

Coffee is a brewed beverage with a dark,init brooo acidic flavor prepared from the roasted seeds of the coffee plant, colloquially called coffee beans. The beans are found in coffee cherries, which grow on trees cultivated in over 70 countries, primarily in equatorial Latin America, Southeast Asia,...

 solids.

The absence of oil (or the significantly lower oil content compared to traditionally brewed coffee) makes the system more stable and the bubbles do not collapse with the same ease as in crema. Soon after the foam is created, a process of thickening takes place where water molecules are constantly pushed out of the frothy mixture. The water is pushed out due to drainage occurring due to pressure differentials along the foam septum. Higher viscosity will retard the phenomenon, and that is the reason that the addition of sugar will create a better foam. The phenomenon continues until bubbles come very close together and the foam almost solidifies. This process can take between 2 minutes to 10 minutes and depends strongly on the agitation process during mixing. As the bubbles come closer together they will slowly start to coalescence and create bigger bubbles. According to the Laplace equation

Laplace pressure

The Laplace pressure is the pressure difference between the inside and the outside of a bubble or droplet. The effect is caused by the surface tension of the interface between liquid and gas.The Laplace pressure is given as...

, variation in bubble size, will result in faster collapsing of the bubbles since the bigger bubbles will consume the smaller ones. Hand-mixers create smaller and more uniformly sized bubbles. The smaller bubble size reduces the bubble pressure gradient and forms a much longer lasting foam.

The presence of oil (a hydrophobic agent) can significantly accelerate the collapsing process localized reduction in the foam elasticity, resulting in the creation of a lighter foam with average bubble diameter larger than 4 mm. This is the reason it is not possible to make a good frappé in many countries, unless one can find spray-dried coffee (which is actually generally less expensive than freeze-dried instant coffee). The utilization of a hand mixer makes possible the creation of finer bubbles which increases the time that the foam can last. The best frappé coffees are often held to be those with the smallest bubbles and a thickness of about 1.5 inches to 2 inches (30 mm to 50 mm) of foam.

Frappé variations

Frappé is available in three degrees of sweetness, determined by the amount of sugar used. These are: glykós (γλυκός, pronounced ɣliˈkos, "sweet", 2 teaspoons of coffee and 4 teaspoons of sugar); métrios (μέτριος, "medium", 2 teaspoons of coffee and 2 teaspoons of sugar); and a skétos (σκέτος, "plain", 2 teaspoons of coffee and no sugar). All varieties may be served with evaporated milk

Evaporated milk

Evaporated milk, also known as dehydrated milk, is a shelf-stable canned milk product with about 60% of the water removed from fresh milk. It differs from sweetened condensed milk, which contains added sugar. Sweetened condensed milk requires less processing since the added sugar inhibits ...

 (με γάλα me ˈɣala), in which case they may be called in slang φραπόγαλο (frapógalo, fraˈpoɣalo, "frappé-milk"), or without. Sometimes, frappé is served without any water (besides the water used in the foam) and milk is used instead. This variation is most commonly found in Cyprus.

Kahlúa

Kahlúa

Kahlúa is a Mexican coffee-flavored rum-based liqueur. It is dense and sweet, with the distinct taste of coffee, from which it is made. Kahlúa also contains sugar, corn syrup and vanilla bean.-History:...

, Baileys Irish Cream

Baileys Irish Cream

Baileys Irish Cream is an Irish whiskey and cream based liqueur, made by Gilbeys of Ireland. The trademark is currently owned by Diageo. It has a declared alcohol content of 17% alcohol by volume...

 or other liqueur

Liqueur

A liqueur is an alcoholic beverage that has been flavored with fruit, herbs, nuts, spices, flowers, or cream and bottled with added sugar. Liqueurs are typically quite sweet; they are usually not aged for long but may have resting periods during their production to allow flavors to marry.The...

s are sometimes used for additional variation, as well as chocolate milk. Many restaurants add a ball of vanilla ice-cream into their frappe instead of milk. Though not technically "frappé" (since they are not shaken), some variations are stirred with a spoon, creating a slightly different texture and, according to some, taste.

Frappé outside Greece

Frappé is also consumed in Cyprus

Cyprus

Cyprus , officially the Republic of Cyprus , is a Eurasian island country, member of the European Union, in the Eastern Mediterranean, east of Greece, south of Turkey, west of Syria and north of Egypt. It is the third largest island in the Mediterranean Sea.The earliest known human activity on the...

, where the Greek Cypriots adopted the frappé into their culture, in Albania

Albania

Albania , officially known as the Republic of Albania , is a country in Southeastern Europe, in the Balkans region. It is bordered by Montenegro to the northwest, Kosovo to the northeast, the Republic of Macedonia to the east and Greece to the south and southeast. It has a coast on the Adriatic Sea...

, the Republic of Macedonia

Republic of Macedonia

Macedonia , officially the Republic of Macedonia , is a country located in the central Balkan peninsula in Southeast Europe. It is one of the successor states of the former Yugoslavia, from which it declared independence in 1991...

, Thailand

Thailand

Thailand , officially the Kingdom of Thailand , formerly known as Siam , is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula and Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the...

, Malaysia, Indonesia

Indonesia

Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...

, parts of Turkey

Turkey

Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...

, Ukraine

Ukraine

Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...

, Poland

Poland

Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...

 and Romania

Romania

Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...

. In recent years Balkan

Balkans

The Balkans is a geopolitical and cultural region of southeastern Europe...

 immigrants in Greece have taken frappé to their homelands, where it has been adopted with some differences. In Bulgaria

Bulgaria

Bulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...

, Coca-cola

Coca-Cola

Coca-Cola is a carbonated soft drink sold in stores, restaurants, and vending machines in more than 200 countries. It is produced by The Coca-Cola Company of Atlanta, Georgia, and is often referred to simply as Coke...

 is sometimes used instead of water

Water

Water is a chemical substance with the chemical formula H2O. A water molecule contains one oxygen and two hydrogen atoms connected by covalent bonds. Water is a liquid at ambient conditions, but it often co-exists on Earth with its solid state, ice, and gaseous state . Water also exists in a...

 (possibly the inspiration for Coca-Cola Blāk

Coca-Cola Blak

Coca-Cola BlāK was a coffee-flavored soft drink introduced by Coca-Cola in 2006 and discontinued in 2008. The mid-calorie drink was introduced first in France, before making its way to the United States and other markets....

), in Denmark

Denmark

Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...

, cold milk is often used instead of tap water, and in Serbia

Serbia

Serbia , officially the Republic of Serbia , is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe, covering the southern part of the Carpathian basin and the central part of the Balkans...

, ice-cream is added.

While Starbucks

Starbucks

Starbucks Corporation is an international coffee and coffeehouse chain based in Seattle, Washington. Starbucks is the largest coffeehouse company in the world, with 17,009 stores in 55 countries, including over 11,000 in the United States, over 1,000 in Canada, over 700 in the United Kingdom, and...

 markets a line of drinks under the name Frappuccino

Frappuccino

Frappuccino is a trademarked line of blended coffee beverages sold by Starbucks. It consists of coffee blended with ice and various other ingredients, usually topped with whipped cream. Frappuccinos are also sold as bottled coffee beverages in stores and from vending machines.-History:Frappuccino...

, they are not directly related, evident by the fact that Starbucks in Greece offers both Frappuccino and Greek-style "Frappe" (written by Starbucks without the accent).