Freddo Cappuccino: Greece's Iced Espresso With Cold Milk Foam

A freddo cappuccino is a Greek iced coffee: a double espresso shaken with ice until it turns light and creamy, strained over fresh ice, and topped with a thick layer of cold milk foam that is left on top rather than stirred in.

How it is made

It is built on a freddo espresso, so that comes first. Konstantinos Iatridis, the Greek barista champion in 2017, gave European Coffee Trip his method from his Athens cafe:

1. Pull a double shot of espresso, a little longer than usual, around 60 to 70 ml.
2. Put it in a shaker with four ice cubes.
3. Shake for 10 to 20 seconds, longer if you want more foam.
4. Strain it into a glass full of ice.

For the cappuccino, add the foam. Cold milk is shaken on its own until it turns thick and creamy, then spooned over the top of the coffee. Low-fat milk foams faster and more easily when it is cold, and the same source warns against shaking too hard or too fast, which gives bubbles instead of a smooth cream.

Which coffee to use

Ice dulls flavour, so the espresso has to be able to take it. Iatridis prefers fruity coffees with higher acidity and a full body, because once the shot is shaken with ice its intensity fades, and a coffee with good acidity still stands out afterwards. A flat, very dark espresso tends to taste of little more than cold bitterness by the time it reaches the glass.

No shaker at home is not a problem: any jar with a tight lid does the same job for both the coffee and the milk foam. What matters is fresh espresso, plenty of ice, and cold milk straight from the fridge.

Freddo cappuccino vs freddo espresso

The coffee is the same. The difference is the foam, which gives the cappuccino two textures: a cold, light coffee underneath and a thick, soft layer of milk on top. Left unstirred, the foam slowly turns back into milk and blends into the coffee as you drink, so the drink changes from the first sip to the last. Some people eat a spoonful of the foam first, then drink.

A freddo espresso has no milk at all and is meant to be tasted as coffee. Iatridis recommends drinking it without sugar so the espresso can come through.

Freddo cappuccino vs frappé

Before the freddo, Greece's iced coffee was the frappé: instant coffee shaken with cold water into a foam and poured over ice. It dates, by the popular story, from a trade fair in Thessaloniki in 1957, and the full account is in frappé vs Frappuccino.

Espresso reached Greek cafes in the early 1990s, and baristas soon made an iced version of it to replace the frappé. The freddo espresso and freddo cappuccino are that replacement: the same idea of a shaken, foamy iced coffee, made with real espresso instead of instant. Nobody has put a documented date or inventor to the first one.

How it differs from other iced coffees

Pouring espresso straight over ice gives a thinner drink with no foam; shaking it is what makes the freddo creamy. The Italian caffè shakerato is also shaken, but it is sweetened, strained into a chilled stemmed glass with no ice in it, and has no milk. An iced cappuccino made the usual way stirs cold milk through the coffee instead of floating foam on top. The wider difference between cold brew and coffee that is chilled after brewing is covered in cold brew vs iced coffee.

Ordering one in Greece

Sugar is decided when you order, and Greek cafes use three words for it: sketos for no sugar, metrios for medium, and glykos for sweet. If you are used to sweet iced coffee, ask for metrios; if you want to taste the espresso, sketos is how Iatridis recommends it.