Frappé vs Frappuccino: Same Word, Different Drinks

They share a word and very little else. A Greek frappé is instant coffee shaken into a thick foam and served over ice and cold water. A Frappuccino is a blended ice drink made with milk and sweetener, sold by Starbucks.

The Greek frappé

A frappé is made by shaking instant coffee with a little water, and sugar if you want it, until it turns into a thick foam. The foam is poured into a glass with ice and topped up with cold water, milk is optional, and it is drunk through a straw. The word comes from French, where frappé means shaken, and by extension a drink chilled with ice.

The popular story is that it was invented by accident at the Thessaloniki International Fair in 1957, when Dimitris Vakondios, who worked for Nescafé, could not find hot water for his instant coffee and shook it with cold water and ice instead. The story is not the whole picture: a Greek film from 1951 already mentions frappé coffee, and Nestlé was promoting a Nescafé frappé before the fair. Either way, the frappé became Greece's everyday iced coffee for decades, until espresso-based drinks such as the freddo cappuccino took over.

Making a Greek frappé at home

1. Put instant coffee in a shaker or a jar, with sugar if you want it sweet.
2. Add a small splash of cold water, just enough to cover the coffee.
3. Shake hard, or use a small milk frother, until it turns into a thick, pale foam.
4. Pour it into a tall glass with ice, then top up slowly with cold water.
5. Add milk if you like, and drink it through a straw.

The straw is not decoration. The foam sits thick on top and tastes bitter on its own, so most people drink the coffee from underneath it. Sugar is ordered the same way as for a freddo, with sketos, metrios or glykos for none, medium or sweet, and it has to go in before the shaking, because it will not dissolve properly once the drink is cold.

The Frappuccino

The Frappuccino was created in 1992 at The Coffee Connection, a coffee chain in Boston, by its marketing manager Andrew Frank. The name was a play on the New England frappe, which in that part of the United States means a milkshake, combined with cappuccino.

Starbucks bought The Coffee Connection in 1994 for $23 million, taking the Frappuccino with it, changed the recipe so that the drink was made in a blender, and turned it into one of its best sellers: by 1996 it was bringing in more than $52 million a year. Today it is a family of blended drinks made from ice, milk, a coffee base, sweetener and flavourings, often topped with whipped cream. How it compares with a hot cappuccino is covered in cappuccino vs Frappuccino.

Side by side

Which to order

If you want an iced coffee that tastes of coffee and is not sweet unless you ask, order a frappé or, in most Greek cafes today, a freddo. If you want a cold, sweet, creamy treat closer to a milkshake, the Frappuccino is the one. The line between iced coffee made cold from the start and coffee chilled after brewing is explained in cold brew vs iced coffee.