也許你喝的根本不是卡布奇諾

What if the cappuccino you had this morning was not, in fact, a cappuccino? Scary. More worrisome still: What if your flat white was?

如果你今天早上喝的那杯卡布奇諾，其實不是卡布奇諾，那可怎麼辦？太可怕了。而更嚇人的是：如果你的小白咖啡(flat white)纔是地道卡布奇諾呢？

There was a time when cappuccino was easy to identify. It was a shot of espresso with steamed milk and a meringue-like milk foam on top. But now the onetime king of specialty coffee drinks is having a bit of an identity crisis.

曾幾何時，卡布奇諾是很容易鑑別的。一份濃縮咖啡，加上熱牛奶，最上面蓋一層蛋白霜似的奶泡。然而，這個曾經的特種咖啡飲品之王，如今正遭遇一場身份危機。

Even among experts, there is considerable disagreement concerning what exactly a cappuccino is, with some of those in the know focusing on the size of the drink as its distinguishing characteristic.

卡布奇諾到底是什麼，即使在專家中間也存在不小的爭議，在行的都把重點放在咖啡的大小上，認爲這是區分彼此的特徵。

“In the U.S., cappuccino are small, medium and large, and that actually doesn’t exist,” the food and coffee writer Oliver Strand said. “Cappuccino is basically a four-ounce drink.”

“在美國，卡布奇諾有小杯、中杯、大杯，這其實是生造出來的，”美食和咖啡作家奧列佛·斯特蘭德(Oliver Strand)說。“卡布奇諾基本上就是一種4盎司的飲品。”

Todd Carmichael, a founder of La Colombe, a coffee roasting company with cafes in New York and other cities, is not so hung up on the ounce factor. “We’ve made the cappuccino mobile,” he said. “With 8 to 10 ounces, the flavors do not go away. They’re just less intense.”

在紐約等地開有咖啡館的咖啡烘焙公司La Colombe創始人託德·卡爾米切爾(Todd Carmichael)認爲，不應該死盯着份量這一個因素。“我們讓卡布奇諾靈活起來了，”他說。“8到10盎司的情況下，它的風味並沒有消失。只是沒那麼濃烈了。”

Others cling to old-school notions of what makes a cappuccino, with the layering of ingredients as the main thing. “The goal is to serve three distinct layers: caffè, hot milk and frothy (not dense) foam,” the chef and writer Mario Batali wrote in an email. “But to drink it Italian style, it will be stirred so that the three stratum come together as one.”

還有人堅守着對卡布奇諾的老派定義，幾種成分的分層是重點。“目標是三個不同的層：咖啡、熱牛奶和有泡泡（不細密）的奶泡，”廚師、作家馬里奧·巴塔裏(Mario Batali)在郵件中說。“但是要按意大利人的喝法，必須要攪拌，讓三層混合在一起。”

With the stirring of the drink, one may see the distinctive red-brown color similar to that of the habits worn by men belonging to the Order of Capuchin Friars Minor, a resemblance believed by some to have given the beverage its name.

攪拌後咖啡呈現一種特別的紅棕色，跟方濟嘉布遣會(Order of Capuchin Friars Minor)修士身上的道服顏色接近，有人因此認爲飲品的名字就是由此而來。

Joe, a cafe with 13 locations in New York and Philadelphia, serves a cappuccino that is not layered, with no bubbly foam on top. “The consistency should be the same from the first sip to the last,” said Jonathan Rubenstein, one of Joe’s founders.

Joe在紐約和費城有13家分店，它的卡布奇諾是不分層的，最上面也沒有看得見泡泡的奶泡。“從第一口到最後一口，口感應該是一樣的，”Joe創始人之一喬納森·魯本斯坦(Jonathan Rubenstein)說。

The Joe version would seem to violate the cappuccino standards put forth by the Specialty Coffee Association of America (S.C.A.A.) and its Barista Guild, which advocate a one-centimeter layer, minimum, of milky foam.

Joe的版本似乎違背了美國特種咖啡協會（Specialty Coffee Association of America，簡稱SCAA）及其下屬咖啡師行會(Barista Guild)推行的卡布奇諾標準，該標準主張最少要有一釐米厚的奶泡。

Only one centimeter? Sounds dangerously close to a latte. But who would know better than the S.C.A.A.? “It’s kind of ridiculous,” said David Schomer, the founder of Espresso Vivace in Seattle.

才一釐米？感覺一不留神就要成拿鐵了。但這可是堂堂SCAA的標準。“有點荒謬，”西雅圖Espresso Vivace創始人戴維·舒默(David Schomer)說。

Some coffee specialists pointed to “latte art creep” as responsible for the small amount of foam in the modern-day cappuccino, noting that it is easier for baristas to make intricate designs with less froth in a time of Instagram-ready food and drink.

有咖啡專家認爲，都是那些“拿鐵藝術婊”導致現代卡布奇諾的奶泡如此之少，他們說，在這個無Instagram不成炊的年代，較少的泡沫有利於咖啡師做出繁複的花式。

Given the changes in what constitutes a cappuccino, some people may find themselves with an attachment to an incarnation of the drink that was in style when they came of coffee-drinking age. “Back in 1985, the best cappuccino was the one with five-inch mounds of froth sprinkled with cinnamon,” the restaurateur Daniel Meyer wrote by email. “We gave up on foam in 2006.”

鑑於卡布奇諾的定義在變，有些人也許會對自己開始喝咖啡的那個年代時興的版本特別有感情。“1985年的時候，最好的卡布奇諾是有一座五英寸的奶泡山的，上面撒肉桂，”餐館業主丹尼爾·梅耶爾(Daniel Meyer)在郵件中寫道。“我們在2006年告別了奶泡。”

Mr. Carmichael of La Colombe recalled the cappuccino at an influential cafe in Seattle, Torrefazione Italia, long before specialty coffee drinks were common. “Cappuccino was coffee with really thick meringue-type foam,” he said. “You could set an olive on it and it wouldn’t sink.”

在影響深遠的西雅圖咖啡館Torrefazione Italia，La Colombe的卡爾米切爾回憶起特種咖啡遠未普及的年代，卡布奇諾是什麼樣子。“所謂卡布奇諾就是有非常厚的、蛋白霜式的奶泡，”他說。“在上面放一顆橄欖不會沉下去。”

Kenneth Nye, who founded the East Village cafe Ninth Street Espresso in 2001, grew so sick of customers’ insistence on what they believed to be a “real” cappuccino that he removed all the drink names from his menus. “All it says is ‘espresso with milk,’ ” Mr. Nye said. “We stopped with the names because it’s all silly.”

肯尼思·奈(Kenneth Nye)2001年在紐約東村開了第九街意式咖啡館(Ninth Street Espresso)，他不堪忍受那些深信自己知道什麼是“正宗”卡布奇諾的顧客，去掉了菜單上所有飲品的名稱。“全都是‘意式濃縮加牛奶’，”奈說。“我們不再用名稱是因爲，所有名字都很傻。”

The new enthusiasm for the flat white, a drink made of espresso and milk that seems to have originated in Australia or New Zealand, is particularly nettlesome to Mr. Nye. “You put 10 people in a room who claim to be an authority on the flat white, you’re going to get at least five different opinions on what it should be,” he said. “People are trying to make the whole process intimidating to the consumer.”

新近走紅的小白咖啡讓奈格外惱火，這種用意式濃縮咖啡和牛奶製成的飲品，似乎是澳大利亞或新西蘭傳來的。“你去找10個自稱的小白咖啡權威來，問他們什麼是小白咖啡，至少能得到五種說法，”他說。“這是要讓顧客對整個製作過程心生敬畏。”

Not everyone who cares about such matters has adopted Mr. Nye’s heck-with-it attitude toward coffee taxonomy. The Instituto Nazionale Espresso Italian, for one, calls for “25 ml espresso and 100 ml steam-foamed milk.” Coffee lovers in Italy believe so strongly in the idea of an authentic cappuccino that in 2007, the head of the nation’s commission on agriculture, Marco Lion, proposed government certification for cafes that make the drink the right way. (The government was dissolved before any action could be taken.)

並非所有關心這類問題的人都像奈這樣，對咖啡分類學不屑一顧。比如國立意大利濃縮咖啡研究所(Instituto Nazionale Espresso Italian)就呼籲使用“25毫升濃縮咖啡和100毫升蒸汽攪打奶泡”。意大利咖啡愛好者對地道卡布奇諾的理念是十分堅持的，以至於該國農業委員會主席馬可·裏翁(Marco Lion)在2007年提出，政府應向使用正確製作方法的咖啡館頒發證書。（那屆政府還沒來得及採取任何舉措就解散了。）

But the notion of an Italian ideal is dismissed by others. “Even in Italy, it varies,” Mr. Nye said. “The one commonality was that it was small and considered a morning drink.”

但有人對所謂意大利完美標準也不以爲然。“即使在意大利也是多樣的，”奈說。“唯一的共通之處是份量較小，被認爲是一種早晨的飲品。”

The drink’s origins are likely Austrian, said Andy Smith, a culinary historian at the New School. It went mainstream with the rise of Starbucks, which Howard Schultz bought and began expanding (along with the sizing of cappuccino) in the late 1980s. “They should be given some credit,” Mr. Smith said.

新學院(New School)烹飪史學家安迪·史密斯(Andy Smith)說，卡布奇諾可能起源於奧地利。是隨着星巴克的崛起而普及起來的，霍華德· 舒爾茨(Howard Schultz)在1980年代末收購了這個品牌，而後越做越大（隨之變大的還有卡布奇諾的份量）。“應該是有他們一份功勞的，”史密斯說。

Perhaps the best cappuccino is made without the fancy barista work or other trappings. “For perfection,” Mr. Batali said, “see the Italian roadside version of fast food, the Autogrill.”

也許最好的卡布奇諾不需要花哨的咖啡師技法或其他裝飾。“什麼叫完美追求，”巴塔裏說。“去看看意大利路邊攤版快餐Autogrill。”