Man experience with Parisian coffee culture started with a shock. And no, not a caffeine shock. I was in the city to study in 2012 and above all I wanted to escape from my tiny room of about nine square meters. So I sat down on the terrace of the nearest café around the corner from me on Canal Saint Martin.
The selection was less shocking than the price list. She started with the “cheapest”: €4.50 for an espresso and €4.90 for a noisette. I reluctantly chose the latter. If you have to pay more than four euros for a dollop of the best caffeine, then at least refine it with a touch of milk. That’s exactly what a noisette is, an espresso with a drop of frothed milk.
Bon, as the French say, I was mentally prepared for blatant price differences in Paris. Despite this, I thought to myself, I’ll sit and read my book as long as I want. Almost two hours and 100 pages of Sigrid Nunez’s “Memoirs of Susan Sontag” later I left the café happy. The wonderful thing about Parisian coffee culture, as I learned that day, is that you can linger undisturbed for a long time. Nobody keeps coming and asking if you don’t want to order something else. And quite quickly I got to know the cheaper addresses.
“You just have to go in”
“You did it completely wrong,” my friend and original Parisian Pablo said to me a few months later. “Espresso is one euro or 1.20 – maximum 1.50 if they are thieves.” Please? It is well known that the Parisians know their city best, but I hadn’t seen such prices even after half a year. My friend nodded confidently, “You just have to walk in, order at the counter and drink standing there.”
Nothing café au lait: if milk is used in coffee in Paris, please just a few drops.
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Bild: Picture Alliance
At the counter, at the bar is the magic word in Paris to get cheap espresso, regardless of the district and actually also the establishment. “Traditionally, Parisians do not drink their coffee at home, but in a café before they start the day,” says Carole Chrétiennot from the prestigious Café de Flore on the phone. “Before going to work, they treat themselves to a coffee at the counter – one sip, hop and off we go. That’s why there’s one on every corner.”
At the same time, Parisians have a quasi-symbiotic relationship with their cafés and can linger in them for hours. “It’s a kind of habitat for us,” says Chrétiennot, “I don’t think there’s any country in the world that publishes as many books on the history of coffee houses as here.” Because cultural history was written in the Parisian cafés: according to legend, the Enlightener Diderot came up with the idea for his encyclopedia in “Le Procope”, one of the oldest cafés in the city (founded in 1686). Writers Victor Hugo, Oscar Wilde and Marcel Proust frequented the “Café de la Paix”, opposite the opera (and currently one of the most expensive caffeine addresses).
On the other side of the Seine, in the sixth arrondissement, there are the famous quasi-neighboring cafés “Les Deux Magots” and the “Café de Flore”, where the art movement of surrealism around André Breton was born. Existentialists Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir were regulars at both houses. The author Françoise Sagan, but also Picasso made the Flore their headquarters. The world of cinema and, above all, design also met here: Yves Saint Laurent and Karl Lagerfeld – together with muses, models and entourage – resided in the Flore. To this day, there’s an unspoken seating plan of well-heeled celebrities and regulars.
The Café de Flore still attracts many guests today, the regular customers have a secret seating plan.
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Bild: Picture Alliance
The blend of coffee at Flore, which opened in 1887, is also secret to a certain extent: “We serve a Grand Cru here, a pure Arabica coffee, but we dose it differently, how precise is a secret recipe,” whispers Carole Chrétiennot on the phone.
Whether it’s philosophizing for hours or a short sip while standing – the Parisians traditionally prefer their coffee to be strong and without any big extras. There is also the allongé, an espresso that is diluted with hot water and thus comes closest to the German understanding of a cup of coffee. And for which I was very grateful after my studies, when I always worked in Paris. Otherwise the caffeine shock threatens in the office.
And what about cafe au lait? You can really get in trouble with the Parisians. “Maybe on vacation or with the grandparents, in the past, like in a cereal bowl, but that’s the greatest feeling!” my Parisian friend Pablo tells me. “Le café au lait, non!” protests Carole Chrétiennot, “For me it’s very Spanish, very American. There’s almost no coffee left in there. We have the café crème. That’s coffee with a drop of milk.”
In the past ten years, during which I have repeatedly returned to Paris to work and visit family, quite a few things have of course also changed in the local coffee world. Now there are numerous hip, light-flooded places with lots of green plants, matcha latte, flat white and various creations – everything to-go, bien sûr. Some traditional cafes no longer serve at the counter, although this could also be a result of Covid rules (standing drinking was sometimes banned in France).
Even the tradition-conscious “Café de Flore” has opened up to a milk froth creation and almost five years ago included the cappuccino in its menu. However, there is no 11 a.m. curfew like in the Italian neighbours.