Americano

The usual story is that American soldiers in Italy during the Second World War watered down espresso to make it taste like the coffee they drank at home. It is repeated almost everywhere, but we did not find a wartime record of it, and the dictionaries point somewhere else.

The Online Etymology Dictionary records “americano” in English by 1964 and traces it to Spanish café americano, a Central American term from the 1950s that disparaged the kind of coffee believed to be favoured in the United States. So the name is documented as a comment on American taste; the GI story may be true, but it is still a story.

Source: americano, Online Etymology Dictionary

The same two ingredients in the opposite order. A long black is made by pouring espresso into a cup of hot water; Breville’s recipe describes it as an americano made in reverse.

Source: Long Black, Breville

Vienna’s coffee houses have their own version. The Austrian National Tourist Office describes the Verlängerter, “the lengthened one,” as an espresso diluted with the same amount of hot water.

Source: Viennese Coffeehouse Culture, Austrian National Tourist Office

Popular enough to have its own slang. The Korea Herald reported in 2023 that Starbucks Korea’s iced drinks made up 77% of the drinks it sold that year up to 23 November, up from 74% in 2022, and more than half even in January. The same article describes eoljuka — short for “even if I freeze to death, iced americano” — as the name for people who drink it through the winter.

Source: Koreans will 'freeze to death' for iced Americanos even in winter, The Korea Herald (2023)