04/07/2010: "Coffee with Milk"

After I posted "How to Order Coffee in Spain", I thought I would add a few other options for those of you traveling abroad.

Café au lait (French: coffee with milk) is a pretty direct translation.

Caffe e latte (Italian: coffee with milk) espresso with milk.

Latte macchiato (Italian: "marked milk") milk with a hint of espresso.

Ghetto latte (American) bootleg latte, whereby customers mix their own latte by ordering a lower-priced cup of espresso and then mixing it with milk and other condiments offered for free at the condiments bar.

And most surprisingly,

Café com leite (Portuguese: "coffee with milk") a term that referred to the domination of Brazilian politics under the Old Republic (1889-1930) by the landed gentries of São Paulo (dominated by the coffee industry) and Minas Gerais (dominated by dairy interests).

Three morals in this story:

1. Be careful what you ask for.
2. Metaphor is the language of politics.
3. So is coffee.

Yours with creativity and imagination,
Darlene