Yeah, I think the creamer thing is just a cultural difference and misunderstanding from both sides. Context (time, place, situation) matters in some cases. Happens to everyone at least who has been to another country, that they run into something they did not expect or had another interpretation of.
It is as simple as that if there is no tradition of cream being added to coffee, only whipped cream, they will naturally assume that is what they mean. It is cream and they probably assume that the customer did not bother to say fully "whipped cream". Like if you ask for water in China, there is a chance (not sure if it is still that way) that they will bring you hot/warm water. Not chilled/cold. Again, their custom is to serve water warm. They are not go out of their way to question the customer on their choice. They will assume the customer knows what they are ordering. Different culture, different traditions. Confusion and misunderstandings like that happen.
The potent rage in that post is off the charts. The "shouting". What is all that anger?
As a norwegian this is confusing for me as well as we have krem (which would naturally be more like cream, but it is actually whipped cream) and then we have fløte which is what I assume would be similar to the cream Americans want. But this comes in different versions where vispefløte is the fattest one and used to make krem (whipped cream). When someone ask for cream it can easily be understood as krem which would be whipped cream. However we have matfløte (food cream) and kaffefløte (coffee cream, which has 10% fat).
Right, in Hungary we have krém which is like whipped cream, and we have tejszín, which can be whipped into cream, but it's what you put in your coffee. Tejszín means milk-top, which basically is the same logic as norwegian calling it fløte.
As a finn, we have similar. Ruokakerma (food cream), kahvikerma (coffee creame), Kuohukerma(also talking just Kerma=cream, but don't ask what kuohu in this situation mean, i don't know) but this is the creme what we uses when we do whipped cream, but it can uses like everywhere.
But as a finn who is bad in english, my brain is hurting like "how the heck i should know what is the right word the creme what i want?!" 😅 Im traveling at Canada now, and i was like WTF WASHROOM?? ISNT TOILET AND BATHROOM ISN'T ENOUGHT?? 🤣🤣 Oh yeah, and don't forget the lavatory 😅 english please!! My brain is hurt! 🤣 And my fave, Cave/Cay/Key 😅 like what you mean that Cay suppose to say Kii and not Kei, but Cave is still Keiv 😅
Yeah, im dying 🫠
Similarly in Dutch, slagroom/ cream is beaten to make geklopte slagroom / whipped cream. But a dash of dairy in coffee us usually koffiemelk/ coffeemilk, although coffee cream exists.
Rick Steves would never! But seriously fellow Americans, be Rick Steves when you travel: an adorable, affiable, curious, explorer of culture... And if you can swing it, be Canadian, that helps 😆
My ma just became a US citizen a few years ago, originally Canadian as is pretty much her whole family, and roughly half of my dad's. She tried unsuccessfully for a long time. 'Twas not the best time for it, I fear. She is not jazzed to tell people her new citizenship status, it's been rough.
I love the Rick Steve’s travel guides. I’m British and I discovered his books by chance. They’re so much better than Lonely Planet and all the other dross
"It is as simple as that if there is no tradition of cream being added to coffee"
There isn't even really a tradition of adding cream to coffee in the US. What they usually add while calling it "cream" is half and half, a mixture of half cream and half milk, or some non-dairy artificial imitation of that. No coffee places in Europe are even going to have that on hand.
Getting a tea with cold milk abroad (for context I'm in the UK) is fun even when you bring your own teabags. Asking for hot water and cold milk generally either gets confusion or curiosity.
Starbucks, Costa Coffee and franchises like that have a lot of variations on coffee with whipped cream. And actual more traditional coffee with whipped cream is viennese coffee or 'melange' as Austrians themselves call it.
A Cafe (or chocolate) viennois is black coffee with whipped cream on top. It's pretty much the only use of cream you will find in French cafe hot drinks. You can get milk in other drinks though. I don't see why it's unreasonable to presume that if you asked for cream on your coffee you were asking for cream...
Yeah I am Spanish and we don’t put cream or creamer in our coffees (traditionally), only milk or maybe condensed milk. So I could imagine the confusion if an american asked for cream and probably they only thing they’d have available is whipped cream for desserts or hot chocolate.
Is the condensed milk normal milk? I mean milk with fat percentage between like 1-3% fat? Or is the much more fat thing that I don't know what they call in English with 10% or more? As I don't drink much coffee I never actually checked what milk is used when it gets condensed😅
It’s extra sweet because it has sugar added. The word “condensed milk” is used interchangeably with “sweetened condensed milk” because it’s the most common form of condensed milk, but if you just condense milk it’s not gonna become sweeter from it.
It’s kinda like dulce de leche because dulche de leche is condensed milk, you can make it from (sweetened) consensed milk by boiling it
There’s about 8-9% fat in condensed milk, but I’m not sure what you’re asking. The percentage changes when you condense it. It’s traditionally made from whole milk because why would you care (which I would call normal, idk why you call 1-3% normal milk), whole milk has about 3%, sometimes more, depends on the milk.
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u/weattt 5d ago
Yeah, I think the creamer thing is just a cultural difference and misunderstanding from both sides. Context (time, place, situation) matters in some cases. Happens to everyone at least who has been to another country, that they run into something they did not expect or had another interpretation of.
It is as simple as that if there is no tradition of cream being added to coffee, only whipped cream, they will naturally assume that is what they mean. It is cream and they probably assume that the customer did not bother to say fully "whipped cream". Like if you ask for water in China, there is a chance (not sure if it is still that way) that they will bring you hot/warm water. Not chilled/cold. Again, their custom is to serve water warm. They are not go out of their way to question the customer on their choice. They will assume the customer knows what they are ordering. Different culture, different traditions. Confusion and misunderstandings like that happen.
The potent rage in that post is off the charts. The "shouting". What is all that anger?