Coffee culture in France – more than just the drink

One of the joys (and occasional confusions) of spending time in different countries is observing how something as seemingly universal as coffee can be approached so differently.

In France, ordering a coffee is almost never about the coffee itself, it is about the moment, the ritual, the pause. You sit down, you order un café (which, by default, means a small, strong espresso), and you sip it slowly, sometimes over a newspaper, often while simply watching the world drift by. No one is rushing and you don’t grab it in a paper cup and race to the next thing. In fact, à emporter (to take away) is still a relatively new concept and, in many places, still faintly frowned upon. Coffee is not a means to an end. It’s the end in itself.

Compare this with the UK, where the culture is gradually catching up with the Europe’s café lifestyle, but still carries the hallmark of utility. Coffee is fuel, you drink it on the go, you sip it mindlessly at your desk, or you line up for it on the school run with half an eye on your phone. It’s not that Brits don’t enjoy the taste (although, historically, coffee in the UK wasn’t much to write home about), but the emphasis is on convenience. The high street is dominated by takeaway chains, the cups are the size of small buckets, and there is rarely a saucer in sight.

And then there is the US, where coffee culture has taken on an identity all of its own. It is performative, personalised; you order what you want, how you want it, and when you want it, at speed. Oat milk, half-caf, iced with caramel drizzle? Absolutely. The coffee shop is an extension of the home and the office: you can stay for hours with your laptop, use the Wi-Fi, plug into the wall, and no one bats an eyelid.

The French would likely be horrified. Here it is almost the opposite; you sit at a table, even if it’s just for a thimble of espresso, and in return, you’re given time. No one moves you on and no one rushes you. But there’s an unspoken contract: you’re here to be present, not plugged in and hence laptops and phones are not the norm. The café is a stage for real life, not remote work.

And maybe that’s what it comes down to. Coffee culture reflects broader ideas about how we choose to live. Are we consuming for purpose, or pausing for pleasure? Is the cup in our hand a tool to get through the day, or an excuse to step outside of it for a few minutes?

That is not to say that one is better than the other, just as where you were born should not determine how you live. But these quiet, seemingly inconsequential things; the way we take our coffee, how we greet our neighbours, whether we walk or drive, say so much more than we think about pace, about values, about culture.

So every time I sit on a terrace with a tiny porcelain cup, no rush, no wi-fi, I am reminded that, at least sometimes, it is good to let the coffee be the destination. Perhaps this is one of the many benefits of moving abroad for a while; the way your habits shift without you even noticing. You start to savour things differently, you stop apologising for sitting still, you ‘unlearn’ urgency.

When I first moved to France, I couldn’t understand how people took so long over lunch, or how a single espresso could last an entire conversation. Now, I find it hard to rush through a takeaway coffee without feeling a little cheated. Something that used to be transactional has become intentional. And that shift, small as it might seem, changes the texture of your day.

Living abroad doesn’t mean reinventing yourself completely. It just means letting new ways of living rub off on you, until one day you realise that you’re not the same as you were. You still love a good cup of coffee but maybe now, you take it sitting down. And maybe that’s the real difference in the coffee culture.

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