‘It was a pleasant café, warm and clean and friendly, and I hung up my old waterproof on the coat rack to dry and put my worn and weathered felt hat on the rack above the bench and ordered a café au lait. The waiter brought it and I took out a notebook from the pocket of the coat and a pencil and started to write.’
-Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast
Books and coffee are old mates, and the coffee shop is where they meet. Meet me for a tête-à-tête! Do you want to grab a coffee? In the café, creativity blooms when our first coffee of the day gives us that initial SPARK, a momentum that we ride into lunchtime. And since we wake up every day, having our coffee is a daily ritual. Hemingway orders café au lait, suggesting a leisurely Parisian morning...and indeed Hemingway was in Paris when he wrote his memoir in the nineteen hundreds. Nineteen hundred twenty. A century later, café au lait is served on the daily in cafes around the globe from Harajuku to San Diego, in Jakarta and Puerto Rico.
Au Lait Recipe
The classic French breakfast coffee is traditionally served in a bowl with no handles, big enough to dip a baguette or croissant. When choosing your coffee beans, we suggest a darker roast.
First prepare your coffee using a standard drip method or filter style brewer. You may also use a stove-top moka pot at home for a strong, inky brew. Pour milk into a small saucepan or frother and set over medium heat on your stovetop, aiming for 140°-150°F (60°-65°C) or about three minutes. If you’re going for a classic au lait, we suggest 1:1 ratio of strong filter coffee to milk. (When a customer orders an au lait ‘to go’ at the shop, we pour up 8 oz of dark roast and steam milk for a 2:1 coffee to milk ratio.) Pour your coffee and milk simultaneously into a bowl, (or a big ol’ mug) and enjoy your historic cup of coffee.