Is There A Difference Between A Frappe And Frappuccino?

Sometimes, you need a cup of strong black coffee to achieve alertness and kickstart your brain. Other times, your caffeine cravings lean toward something cold, sweet, and indulgent. You head to your closest coffee shop and order a Frappuccino — or was that a frappe?

Because they're not technically the same. Traditionally, a frappe (pronounced fra-pay), is a Greek beverage consisting of instant coffee, sugar, and water blended and poured over ice (a similar technique is used in the fluffy Dalgona coffee that went viral). The Frappuccino — trademarked by Starbucks — is typically a frozen blend of milk, coffee (optional), and any number of additional flavorings blended with ice to give it a thicker consistency. 

Of course, McDonald's didn't lessen the confusion when they dubbed their own frozen coffee drink a Frappé. And the fact that you can buy both Frappuccinos and Frappés as refrigerated bottled drinks probably isn't helping, either. Oh, and if you're in New England, a frappe is simply another name for a milkshake! (More on that in a bit.)

The frappe may be considered a Greek staple, but it was invented fairly recently. At the 1957 Thessaloniki International Fair in Greece, Nestlé salesman Dimitrios Vakondios was in need of a caffeine boost. His drink of choice was his company's Nescafé Classic, an instant coffee usually mixed with hot water. But he couldn't find any hot water, so the inventive Vakondios turned to what he had on hand: a shaker used to make the children's chocolate drink Nestlé was promoting at the fair. Instead of hot water, he added cold water along with the Nescafé, gave it a good shake, and the rest is history. It quickly became a fair-goer darling and is popular across the country to this day.

Modern frappes are often blended with sugar as well. However, if you're in Greece and order it "sketo," it will be made without sugar. "Metrio" will be medium-sweet, while "glyko" is for consumers with a healthy appreciation for sugar.

Tourists may still enjoy kicking back on their Grecian vacation with a refreshing frappe, but in its homeland, the drink has been usurped in popularity by the freddo, which is more of a connoisseur's beverage. While the frappe still uses instant coffee, the freddo replaces it with fresh espresso, creating a richer, more complex libation. Many people consider sugar unnecessary due to the higher-quality coffee. Or order a cappuccino freddo, and the frothy espresso blend comes topped with cold foam. 

Although Starbucks has since trademarked the name, the original inventor of the Frappuccino was coffee visionary George Howell. Howell founded The Coffee Connection, a roaster/specialty beverage café, in 1970s New England. One of the specialty beverages Howell created was the now-iconic blended coffee beverage that Andrew Frank, Howell's marketing guru, dubbed "Frappuccino." It's easy to see that the "-uccino" was inspired by the word "cappuccino." But the "frapp-" wasn't inspired by the Greek frappe. It came from the fact that New England residents call milkshakes "frappes." 

Thanks to ideas like that, the business grew to a chain of over 20 stores before Starbucks bought it in the early 1990s. Starbucks had already been rolling out frozen coffee drinks when it purchased The Coffee Connection, but once they had the rights to the name Frappuccino, things really took off, and the Frappuccino became a menu fixture at all Starbucks stores in 1995.

Early Frappuccino flavors were simpler, like mocha and caramel. In 2002, Starbucks began promoting the coffee-less Cremé line, which included flavors like vanilla and strawberry. The company also sells a line of ready-to-drink canned coffees and Frappuccinos you can buy from third parties. In fact, Starbucks claims there are more than 36,000 Frappuccino and drink combos possible, thanks in no small part to customer-conceived options like the cake batter Frappuccino and caramel snickerdoodle macchiato, which you can only get using Starbucks ordering hacks. Between the in-store and third-party options, the number of choices will no doubt continue to rise.