The Origin of the Cappuccino: A Cup That Holds Centuries

Before my shift starts at work I ask Jonathan to make me a decaf cappuccino. Blasphemous, I know, but caffeine effects me strongly and a decaf has just enough to give me a tiny buzz but not enough to keep me awake all night with anxiety and shaking. When there’s about to be 8 hours in a row on my feet running around trying to make people happy, that cappuccino is a lifeline.

I lift it, and for a moment I’m holding something sends a warmth that hums through the porcelain into my hands and seeps into my soul. A perfume of roasted earth and caramelized milk with the faint hiss of steam still ringing in my ears. It’s the calm before the storm, and it really hits like nothing else ever could.

We drink cappuccinos as though they were always here…a quiet inevitability of mornings, but the truth is that every sip is a culmination of centuries: empires, monks, machines, and migrations. Every cup is a crossroads between continents, between devotion and indulgence, between necessity and art that brings a beauty to chemistry.

This is the story of how brown-robed friars, Viennese aristocrats, and Italian baristas together shaped the drink that now leans against the rim of your favorite cup.

Coffee Finds Its Way to Europe

I might be going too far back, but I’m nothing if not a lover of history. Long before milk and foam dressed it, coffee was a black elixir with a sharp, completely unsoftened edge. It entered Europe through the Ottoman Empire in the 16th century as a strange, bitter import from lands seen as both exotic and threatening.
In Venice, traders unloaded sacks of green beans into the city’s labyrinth of canals, carrying with them the scent of distant ports.

It was love and suspicion in equal measure (as all love is).

The clergy argued whether coffee was a Christian’s drink at all and some people called it the devil’s brew, but curiosity outweighed fear after some time. Pope Clement VIII, upon tasting it, supposedly smiled and said, “this drink is so delicious, it would be a sin to let only the infidels have it.” Or something like that as the rumors say.

In those days, it was taken black and strong, bitter enough to make the jaw tighten and there was no cloud of milk or velvet foam…just heat, darkness, and the pulse-quickening rush of caffeine.

The cappuccino’s name was born from a bean from the cloth. The Capuchin friars of Italy (a branch of the Franciscan order) wore robes the color of warm earth. The pointed hood was called a cappuccio, and their dedication to simplicity was woven into every thread.

Sometime in the 17th century, Viennese coffee drinkers began adding cream to their coffee until it turned the same warm brown as those robes. They called it a Kapuziner in German: the Capuchin.

It was a name born from resemblance, and while the early “cappuccinos” were nothing like the espresso-based drinks we know today, the connection was forever fixed in the world’s mind. Every future iteration of the drink (and there were many) would carry the monks’ shadow in its name.

Vienna’s Coffeehouses

If we could get my time machine to work and then step inside a Viennese café in the 18th century you would not find an Italian cappuccino, you would find its ancestor dressed for high society.
Thick porcelain cups with dark coffee mellowed with cream, sometimes sweetened with honey and often topped with cinnamon or chocolate shavings. That sounded so delicious that I actually went and tried it this morning, and I’ll tell you what, it slapped.

These were not hurried drinks back then. In Vienna, coffeehouses were salons, a second home to artists, composers, and politicians.
Mozart lingered over them, Freud thought over them, all while Trotsky plotted over them.

It was here, in this world of stunning crystal chandeliers and marble counters, that the idea of coffee as a canvas for indulgence took root. A Kapuziner was not simply about caffeine, it was about time to spend with your thoughts.

The cappuccino we know and love today simply could not exist without the invention of espresso. In the early 20th century, Italian innovators began building machines that used steam pressure to push hot water through finely ground coffee. The result was not a long, slow brew, but a short, concentrated shot crowned with crema, a sunlit film of oils and caramelized sugars floating on the surface.

Espresso was a revolution.

It was faster, richer, drastically more intense, and it begged for a partner. Milk, when steamed, transformed into something entirely new and perfect to pair, lightly sweetened by heat, and thickened by foam. Somewhere in this marriage of espresso and milk, the modern cappuccino emerged, a careful balance of thirds: one part espresso, one part steamed milk, one part foam.

When milk is heated to around 150°F (65°C), proteins unravel and trap air, weaving it into a network of bubbles so fine they feel like silk on the tongue. The lactose sweetens as it warms and the fat rounds the flavor out in a way that makes me yearn for the nostalgia of childhood with a marshmallow. It’s chemistry disguised as comfort.

The best baristas know that foam is not just decoration, but an insulator, keeping the coffee warm. It’ also a lens, diffusing aromas upward. This highly sought after texture…that first sip of nothing-but-foam, melting into a sip of coffee, is one of the cappuccino’s great seductions.

Foam, when done well, is not stiff, it swirls and moves like satin in a breeze.

War, Recovery, and Morning Rituals

After World War II, Italy rebuilt not just its cities but its mornings. Espresso machines became fixtures in every café, and cappuccinos became the daily ceremony of the working class.

But there was (and remains) a rule: cappuccinos are for the morning.

After 11 a.m., ordering one will earn you a knowing smile or a gentle correction. Italians believe that milk after a meal slows digestion, and tradition runs deep enough that even tourists eventually fall in line. The postwar cappuccino was not an indulgence for the elite, as in Vienna, it was a comfort for everyone. Quick to drink, energizing, and warm.

By the 1980s and ’90s, cappuccinos had hopped oceans. In America, they grew in size, sweetness, and customization, as most things in America do. Whipped cream sometimes replaced foam and flavored syrups (vanilla, hazelnut, caramel) found their way in.

In some ways, it was a reinvention, but in others, a dilution of the true cappuccino.
The traditional 1:1:1 ratio gave way to milk-heavy lattes in cappuccino’s clothing, but still, the name stuck, and the drink’s allure grew. In global coffee culture, the cappuccino became shorthand for sophistication: a drink you ordered when you wanted to feel like you were in a café on a cobblestoned street, even if you were just on your lunch break in midtown.

Traditional Italian cappuccinos follow the 1:1:1 ratio…anything else is a different drink.
The foam layer keeps coffee warmer up to 30% longer.
In Italy, ordering a cappuccino after lunch is considered a tourist tell.
The world’s largest cappuccino (made in Italy in 2013) measured 4,250 liters, using 800 liters of coffee and 3,500 liters of milk.

Cappuccinos were the original canvas for latte art, not lattes.

Cappuccino, Latte, Flat White, Black Coffee

The distinctions matter to purists:

Cappuccino — equal thirds espresso, steamed milk, foam.
Latte — more milk, less foam, creamier body.
Flat white — velvety microfoam, higher coffee-to-milk ratio.
Black coffee — unsoftened, unadorned, the drink that began it all.

The cappuccino is the middle ground…layered, textured, its identity shaped by contrast.

Today’s cappuccino is at once traditional and experimental. Specialty cafés honor the Italian proportions but bring in single-origin beans, alternative milks, and latte art so precise it borders on sculpture.

You might find beetroot cappuccinos glowing pink, turmeric cappuccinos burning gold, or matcha cappuccinos in vivid green.
But in Italy, the drink remains unchanged, still served in porcelain, still standing at the bar, still kissed by the same morning sun.

Mornings reveal us, and some arrive slow and uncertain, others sharp-edged and impatient, but in both cases, a cappuccino catches the reflection.

Porcelain is the cappuccino’s cathedral, it holds the drink, the thickness of the cup is chosen to trap heat, to keep the foam’s delicate architecture intact until your lips break it. Cups are often white inside, not for purity’s sake, but to frame the contrast of crema and milk, the way an art gallery wall frames a painting. Some cafés keep their cups warm before pouring, so that the drink meets no sudden chill, which is a detail unnoticed by most, but felt by all.

In Naples, it might be accompanied by a pastry so sweet the coffee becomes an anchor.
In Milan, the pairing is more restrained: a small biscuit, a page of the morning paper, elegance in miniature.
In Sydney or London, oat milk may replace dairy, but the proportions remain sacred to those who care.

The Poetry of Foam

Foam is the cappuccino’s most misunderstood element. Every barista has their preferred texture, some lean toward a cream-thick cap, others toward a cloud that dissolves quickly.

To drink a cappuccino is to taste Vienna’s salons, Italy’s espresso bars, the brown-robed monks whose color became the drink’s name. It’s to take into yourself centuries of travel, invention, and ritual…all distilled into eight ounces.

And when you reach the last sip, when the foam is gone and only a ring of crema remains on the porcelain, you’re left with something rare in this century, a moment to your thoughts.

Want some sustainable tips?

Market.com. “How to Make Your Coffee Habit More Sustainable.” https://www.market.com/kitchen-appliances/coffee-makers/guides/sustainable-coffee-habits/