Café au lait
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Café au lait (French for "coffee with milk") is a French coffee drink.
In Europe, "café au lait" stems from the same continental tradition as "caffè latte" in Italy, "café con leche" in Spain and "café com leite" in Portugal, simply "coffee with milk". At home it is prepared from dark coffee and heated milk; in cafés it is prepared on espresso machines from espresso and steamed milk ever since these machines became available in the 1940s.
In many American coffeehouses, a café au lait is simply a latte with strong drip brewed or French pressed coffee substituted for espresso, though a French roast or similarly dark coffee may be the base of the beverage. In the US they thus serve both caffè latte and café au lait as two different coffee beverages, and define them as such while this is not so in Europe, except in the German variation of the drink, milchkaffee ("milk coffee"), which in Germany is served side by side with the espresso-based caffè latte.
The term misto (literally, "mixed") is also used to refer to a café au lait, most notably by Starbucks.
In medicine, "cafe au lait spots" are the discolored birthmark-like spots on a patient's skin that may be indicative of neurofibromatosis or other conditions.[citation needed]
[edit] New Orleans style
Café au lait in New Orleans has been popularized in part by Café du Monde. There, it is made with milk and chicory, giving it a strong, bitter taste. Inclusion of roasted chicory root as an extender in coffee became common in colonial Louisiana, and eventually was incorporated in its local variant of the French-style coffee drink. Particularly at Café du Monde, the bitterness of the chicory in the beverage offsets the sweetness of a common accompaniment — powdered sugar-covered beignets.
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