Un bon café, c’est compliqué!

One of Europe's pleasures is getting a really good cup of coffee. With great expectations and drool on our chins, we anticipated great coffee in France.  Well, in the South of France, its more complicated.  Setting out to find that elusive cup of coffee got some interesting results. 

Ordering a cappuccino in the South of France usually gets a raised eyebrow, an explanation that this is not Italy and a resulting cup of weak coffee with whipped Chantilly cream.  But if you order a cafe creme, you get a cappuccino.  Follow?  You'd think when you order creme it would involve cream, maybe a little pitcher along side or a topping of whipped cream.  So how do you get a coffee with just a little foamy milk?  A macchiato? No, you order nuts - as in a noisette.  Compris?

Again, our favourite Dalle en Pente had the best cup of coffee on the ski hill

Figuring we had sorted out the lingo, we met up with our French friend Salomé in Aix-en-Provence.  Having a veritable interpreter, we were sure to get that Parisian quality coffee and the desire to smoke a Gitane and maybe tuck a baguette under our armpit. 

Two lovely demoiselles

Finishing off our lunch and eking out that last bit of holiday pleasure, we ordered coffee.  Wanting to make sure we got this last caffeine fix just right, we enlisted Salomé to help us out.  We primed the waiter and told him we wanted  café creme, nice and strong, tres fort.  "Un café serré?".  Oui, oui! This time, we're going to hit pay dirt.  

This is what we thought we were getting

This is what we got

Adrian's reaction to his coffee

A full cup of café serré.   Good to the last drop, because there were only about 5 in the cup.

Salomé  is now changing the subject of her Political Science dissertation and redirecting her efforts in researching the linguistics of ordering coffee in every AOC of France.  So much for just being  maudi anglais.