Over A Bowl Of Coffee?

Let me just share this story over a bowl of coffee and laugh about it all over again. About 8 years or so ago, my husband and I had this habit of having either double espresso or 16 oz of cappuccino throughout the day. One afternoon we were at this fancy Cafe and ordered our 16 oz of cappuccinos. After a few minutes the waiter brings us our coffee. Our cappuccinos were served in 2 oriental bowls. Our faces had this "what the...??? are you kidding me?" look. The waiter tells us that it's how they serve cappuccino in Italy. Really? In a China bowl? C'mon!!! So we asked them if they can put it in their regular 16 oz cappuccino cups that we used to have and they said they didn't have those cups anymore.

So we were sitting there staring at our Chinese bowls and actually giggling about the whole silliness. We didn't actually buy the idea. We were even looking around thinking that we might be in some Candid Camera show. We tried to sip once but it felt really ridiculous. We thought that the waiters might be laughing at us every time we take a sip because they're just pulling a prank on us. So we called our waiter again and asked if he could place them in regular mugs because we're NOT drinking our cappuccinos from a Chinese bowl.

Our waiter did take our bowls to replace them. And now for the hilarity part 2, he comes back with 4 regular mugs since they didn't have the 16 oz mugs anymore. Now we had 2 mugs each in front of us. It was so weird but hilarious. 2 people having coffee with 2 mugs each. Hilarity part 3 we had to gulp down one of our mugs to get rid of them and have just one mug each in front of us to enjoy and at least appear normal.

Here's the thing. I recently read an article in Elle Decor how this so called coffee European style (serving coffee in a bowl) was popularized in Amsterdam about a decade ago. A method you wouldn't really see on the other side of the Atlantic. The editor said that now he's hooked and even bought a few bowls, as in the picture to serve to his guests when having coffee at his house.

Ahhh, see now I'm educated. I can now confidently sip my hot cup of coffee with confidence when served in a bowl. But using the Chinese bowl? Ummm, nothing bout that says European. We still go to have coffee at that fancy Cafe to this day but I don't see those Chinese bowls anymore. Well I guess their attempt to do coffee European style didn't really work out. I'd say give it another decade or so.