Name: From bistro to barista: France's changing coffee culture • FRANCE 24 English
Uploaded: 2025-10-14T06:30:42.000Z
Duration: 6 min 15 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Solange joins me on the set for today's Entrepreneur.

Today you are focusing on a hobby, a habit, or what might be, in my case, an addiction, which is drinking coffee.

And here in Paris, of course, drinking coffee is actually kind of going under, undergoing a sort of change.

Trendy specialty coffee shops are booming here in France.

According to the French Federation of Specialty Coffee, or the Collective Cafe, a new coffee shop opens every week France bringing their current number to 3,500 of them across the country.

Now, we're not talking here about bistros and traditional cafes with their terraces and their zinc bars.

Their zinc bars that you have your coffee at, which French is so well known for, in part thanks to their rich history in the French, in French society and in French thought over the ages.

Here we're talking about chains like Starbucks, Columbus Cafe, our producers favorite addiction, pret A.

We're also talking about independent cafes and roasters with hip furniture and baristas that make beautiful swans or hearts on a frothy cappuccino with oat milk and sourced beans.

We make all of our drinks with black coffee, be it espresso, double espresso Americano.

Before we were pretty much alone and two or three opens.

So there is this increased competition between specialty coffee shops, but also traditional cafes and restaurants.

And bistros are feeling this change in habits.

bistros have been losing this battle from 500,000 at the start of the 20th century to 200,000 in the 1960s to around 30,000.

French bistros and cafes have disappeared.

There are about 30,000 now, particularly in rural areas.

There are government efforts to change this.

And of course, it's not just coffee shops, these specialty coffee shops that have done this.

Fast food chains, inflation, more choices in different types of restaurants, less alcohol consumption as well have contributed.

There are lots of changing habits at play in where we choose as well to sip our coffees.

And what about coffee consumption in general?

How does France stand compared to other countries?

Well, according to the Economist in a paper, actually

that was about climate change and how it's threatening the world's coffee supply, particularly in Brazil, which is the world's number one producer of coffee, but

also all along the bean belt, it's called some 70 nations that produce coffee and have coffee Plantations.

The economist found that the world consumes about 2 billion cups of coffee per day.

And it's actually Finland, followed by other Scandinavian nations, that take the top prize, with over 10 kilos per person per year in coffee consumption.

As for France, we are not in the top 10 of the world, but

each and every one of us likes to drink coffee our preferred way.

I drink two or three every morning, very hot, with a drop of milk and a bit of sugar.

Now, according to an Ipsos poll for Nescafe, 86% of French people drink coffee, and

And some 53% say they have multiple coffees a day.

So with an average of two to three cups per day, a cafe is, of course, a common phrase here.

All right, let's talk a bit about the terminology of coffee in French, for example, order a coffee.

And with these specialty coffee shops here and around the world, of course, there is a whole lingo.

We have gotten used to the often Italian names and terms like espresso, cappuccino.

But it often does feel like there's always a new term that's popping up, like aeropress or slow drip, cold brew.

And in a lot of ways, the coffee industry is a bit like the wine one with a lot of aficionados.

But nonetheless, the basic words to use in ordering a coffee in France, those basic words are often a challenge for foreigners.

So with the help of a graphic from the site snippet of Paris, I have a chart for non francophones on the basic coffee terms in French.

Or it can be a longer, which is what I often get, or an espresso longo.

It's one with a bit more water, just like a cafe American.

A noisette is an espresso with a tiny dab of milk in it, whereas the creme has a lot more hot milk.

A liege was has whipped cream, and a gourmand has baked treats.

All right, what about one that we talk about quite a bit in the States, but

A cafe frappe is that French, despite its very, very French name for frappe does mean to hit or to strike in French.

It also means crazy in slang, but in this sense, it means shaken or a blended drink.

The origin of those frothy coffees is actually Greek.

It was invented by a Nestle representative in Thessaloniki who didn't have hot water.

So he started shaking his dehydrated Nescafe coffee and it created the foam that is now popular in blended drinks.

And on every October 7, people celebrate national Frappe Day and their love for blended coffee drinks of all sorts.

There's also an International Coffee Day.

It's actually celebrated on a lot of different dates in different countries.

It all depends on the country, for coffee is a big deal.

also in the world's economy as it is the second most traded commodity in the world after oil.

Perhaps, though, don't order an iced coffee in France because you might get maybe one ice cube if you're lucky, before Warren Solange, thank you so much for that look at coffee culture here in France.

Don't forget, if you want a closer look at any of our entre new segments, you can always check it out on our website, france24.com you're watching France 24.

Subtitles ListPlay Video

From bistro to barista: France's changing coffee culture • FRANCE 24 English

entrepreneur

strike

consume

consumption