Coffee's Revenge: the Delicious Dichotomy of the Affogato

what is affogato

A world full of coffee shops flooded with milk. Where there are only blonde, medium and dark roasts, the dairy selection boasts cow milk, soy milk, almond milk, cashew milk, oat milk, hemp milk, and coconut milk. Where coffee can be prepared as a pour over, espresso, in the pot, or cold brew, milk comes steamed and frothed, creamy or powdered, condensed in a can (if you’re Vietnamese) or curdled into cheese (if you’re Swedish), and even churned into butter. Our coffee is drowning in dairy. 

Drowning indeed, so let the coffee get its revenge. In the great Italian  tradition of la vendetta one unsuspecting café offering turns the tables: the affogato. An icon of the gleaming, steam-punk age of espresso behemoths, the name literally translated as ‘drowned.’ This time, the dairy drowns in the coffee. 

Simply put, the affogato is a scoop of ice cream, gelado, or fior di latte (a simple cheese made from fresh milk), assaulted by a hot and bitter pour of espresso. Some serve it with a swirl of amaretto while others make it more youthful by subbing the coffee for hot chocolate. More traditionally, a swallow of strong grappa is mixed in as a version of an espresso correto with the addition of ice cream.

The affogato is best served with little ceremony–honoring its two ingredients without distracting from the point–-the contrast within the drink before you. A drinkable pun on the term bittersweet. A dichotomy between hot and cold. The states of matter clashing in liquid and solid. The yin and the yang of vanilla and coffee. A dietician’s qualm between drink and dessert. Your daily cup of coffee is transformed with a scoop of ice cream.

And after the meal, the waiter asks, “Any coffee or dessert?” Someone orders both and the waiter makes a delicious blunder. Espresso drools from some shining stainless steel tower that must have come from Italy during times of historical migration. A plop of ice cream dragged from a display cooler with a belly of curved glass and chrome detailing. In a mug, any old mug, the two duel it out. 

how to make italian affogato

The heat of the fresh espresso nearly sublimates the ice cream into an airy, white foam. The cool core of the scoop dissipates the coffee’s scald. Each bitter molecule donning a sweet jacket to insulate itself from the insulting cold. The creamy dairy runs out in miniscule deltas of muddy milk. Black and white, hot and cold, bitter and sweet vying for supremacy as you sip and spoon ambiguous states of matter into your hungry mouth. After a bit, homogeneity. A room temperature beige drink with something reminiscent of the fluff of ice cream and the bite of espresso.

Coffee taken with milk and sugar is not so different from coffee taken with ice cream. The difference is the drama present in the affogato which elevates it from the mundane cup of joe. 

Read More:

Apple Jack New England

Applejack Two Ways: Traditional American Brandy

August 29, 2021

While New Englanders relied on their infamous cold to strengthen their applejack, the neighboring Mid Atlantic states, particularly New York and New Jersey, were famous for their distilled applejack. Unlike New England’s frozen drink which was homemade and home-consumed, New Yorkers made big business with their apple brandy. A 1903 newspaper reported that Orange County, New York paid more in excise tax on distilled fruit than any other state in the Union. 

Read More »
Challah Bread and Italian Bread

The Year America’s Rabbis Got Us Drunk

September 27, 2021

The religious exception to the Volstead Act allowed for Jewish and Catholic Americans to continue using wine in their ceremonies. This exemption was abused by thousands of Americans who took advantage of the fact that rabbis were not officially selected. Irishmen and others formed new Jewish congregations and became fake rabbis to get their hands on wine during Prohibition.

Read More »
Manhattan Cocktail

Boozy Folk Etymologies of Manhattan: Island and Cocktail

February 21, 2023

The origins of the name Manhattan are muddled in mystery and amateurism for both the New York island and the whiskey cocktail. While the word first pops up on a Henry Hudson Map in 1609, certain ethnographers of the 19th century erroneously thought it meant “island were we got drunk.” Similarly, the origins of the Manhattan cocktail are not entirely known, although it likely emerged in the 1880s.

Read More »

EXPLORE BEVERAGES BY REGION