Your Latte Art Is Named After a Monk's Hood

Most coffee drinks are named for how they're made. Espresso means pressed out, and a latte is just the Italian word for milk. Then there's the cappuccino, which breaks the pattern.

Merriam-Webster notes that the cappuccino "bucks the trend" because its name has nothing to do with preparation. It refers to a group of Catholic friars, not a method, a bean, or a machine.

The friars are the Capuchins, a reform branch of the Franciscans whose reform began around 1525. Sources vary on the exact founding year, so treat that date as approximate. Their name comes from the Italian cappuccio, meaning a pointed hood.

That hood was part of a brown habit. Pour espresso into frothed milk and you get a shade of brown that looked much like the robe. The drink was named after a color, not a flavor.

Vienna may have gotten there first. Cafés there in the late 1700s served coffee with cream and sugar under the name "Kapuziner," again for its robe-like brown. The Italian form may have followed later.

Sources disagree on when the drink itself was first called cappuccino. Some trace it to the 1680s, others to Italy in the 1930s. The English word was borrowed in the late 1800s.

Here's the twist: the Capuchin monkey carries the same name for the same reason. Its brown-capped head recalls the friars' hoods. So a monk, a monkey, and your coffee share one wardrobe. Happy National Cappuccino Day.