# What is/was "Boston-style coffee"? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** coffee\ **Created:** [June 4, 2004, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-was-boston-style-coffee/248722 "2004-06-04T22:41:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![lisiate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f05b48/32.png) [@lisiate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lisiate)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2013, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-was-boston-style-coffee/248722/61 "2013-08-15T22:13:55Z")
> [@obfusciatrist](#): > > Oh, this snippet is from a 1908 issue of Up to the Times Magazine. > > Why it would matter that you pour the coffee into the cream instead of the cream into the coffee, I don’t know. [Milk first or milk second](http://www.theguardian.com/notesandqueries/query/0,,-1400,00.html)is a perennial issue in the tea-drinking world. > [@Scarlett67](#): > > Mr. S and I had lunch today in a diner with a long history – it had in each booth a copy of the original menus from 1937. Pretty entertaining reading. The priciest item on the menu was steak for $1.00. There was also Heinz turtle soup, **several flavors of phosphates** , and daily plate lunches for 35¢. > > One item had us flummoxed: Boston-style coffee, 10¢. Regular coffee was 5¢, so there must have been something mighty special about the Boston-style version to double the cost. Anybody know what it was? Googling yielded no information. > > Thanks much! In all the years since the OP was posted I’m the first to ask about the “several flavors of phosphates” on the menu? ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2013, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-was-boston-style-coffee/248722/62 "2013-08-15T22:38:55Z")
Ask what? ---
**Author:** ![obfusciatrist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/4af34b/32.png) [@obfusciatrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/obfusciatrist)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2013, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-was-boston-style-coffee/248722/63 "2013-08-16T00:14:45Z")
> [@lisiate](#): > > In all the years since the OP was posted I’m the first to ask about the “several flavors of phosphates” on the menu? [Phosphate soda](http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/04/phosphate-with-a-twist/308404/) ---
**Author:** ![lisiate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f05b48/32.png) [@lisiate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lisiate)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2013, 12:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-was-boston-style-coffee/248722/64 "2013-08-16T12:02:39Z")
Huh well you learn something every day. ---
**Author:** ![Ann\_Hedonia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ann_hedonia/32/319_2.png) [@Ann\_Hedonia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ann_Hedonia)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2013, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-was-boston-style-coffee/248722/65 "2013-08-16T14:23:51Z")
This link gives a 1918 recipe and it seems to indicate that “Boston style coffee” is made with an egg. Seems to make more sense than just “extra cream” since the diner charged twice as much for it. [http://www.metaphoriclabs.com/articles/boston-coffee-recipes/](http://www.metaphoriclabs.com/articles/boston-coffee-recipes/) ---
**Author:** ![obfusciatrist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/4af34b/32.png) [@obfusciatrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/obfusciatrist)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2013, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-was-boston-style-coffee/248722/66 "2013-08-16T16:29:07Z")
Interesting and with that I found this recipe for roasting your own beans from _Mrs. Lincoln’s Boston Cook Book_ in which egg is added to the coffee “for clearing.” It has a recipe for adding the egg when roasting the beans where this is “the cheapest form in which to use egg for clearing” but also for adding the egg (and shell) when boiling the coffee (“or the whole egg may be beaten with the ground coffee, and such portin of it used as is needed, keeping the remainder closely covered”). And there’s this paragraph from Steinbeck’s _Travels with Charley_: > [@](#): > > I went into my house and set coffee to cooking, and remembering how Roark Bradford liked it, I doubled the dosage, two heaping tablespoons for each cup and two heaping for the pot. I cracked an egg and cupped out the yolk and dropped shells and white into the pot, for I know nothing that polishes coffee and makes it shine like that. Though this page suggest it was primarily just a way to settle grounds out of boiled coffee, which doesn’t seem like something you’d pay extra for. > **[Yahoo | Mail, Weather, Search, Politics, News, Finance, Sports & Videos](https://www.yahoo.com/)** > > Latest news coverage, email, free stock quotes, live scores and video are just the beginning. Discover more every day at Yahoo! ---
**Author:** ![WestCoastWriter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/a88e4f/32.png) [@WestCoastWriter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WestCoastWriter)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2013, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-was-boston-style-coffee/248722/67 "2013-12-15T20:41:29Z")
My Dad was a short-order cook in the early 1940’s… and as I grew up, I often heard him refer to (and order his coffee) as "Boston-style. So, to answer your question: “Boston” style coffee means lots of extra cream… double or triple the usual amount… which also accounts for the extra cost in the 1930’s. It was generally taken with sugar as well. ---
**Author:** ![WestCoastWriter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/a88e4f/32.png) [@WestCoastWriter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WestCoastWriter)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2013, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-was-boston-style-coffee/248722/68 "2013-12-15T20:45:36Z")
PS: Definitely NOT served with an egg in it ! ---
**Author:** ![Jesse\_Pinkman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a183cd/32.png) [@Jesse\_Pinkman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jesse_Pinkman)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2013, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-was-boston-style-coffee/248722/69 "2013-12-15T20:50:51Z")
It’s coffee that plays wicked hahd when it goes to the pahk. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-was-boston-style-coffee/248722.md?page=3)