Mazagran

Mazagran is a cold, sweetened coffee drink from Algeria, traditionally served over ice in a tall, narrow glass. Its name is linked to a fortress on the northwestern Algerian coast, and it is often described as one of the earliest forms of iced coffee.

History

The name is usually connected to the Mazagran fortress, near the coastal town of Mostaganem in northwest Algeria. According to the reference material, the area passed to France under the Treaty of Tafna in 1837, and French colonial troops at the fortress drank a mixture of coffee syrup and cold water.

Some accounts credit French Foreign Legion soldiers, during the siege of the fortress in the 1840 war, with the idea. Lacking milk or brandy, they reportedly mixed their coffee with water and drank it cold to cope with the heat. These stories are hard to verify and are best treated as tradition rather than documented fact.

When the soldiers returned to Paris, they supposedly urged cafés to serve the drink in tall glasses, and it took the name café mazagran. In France, coffee served in a glass is still called mazagrin.

Culture

In Algeria, mazagran became a simple way to take coffee in hot weather, and its name remains tied to the country's colonial history. Other regions have adapted it to local tastes.

In Portugal it is made with strong coffee or espresso poured over ice, with lemon, sometimes mint and rum, and sugar syrup. In Austria it is served with an ice cube, flavoured with rum or maraschino, and typically drunk in one gulp. In Catalonia and Valencia it is known as café del temps or café del tiempo, made with coffee over ice and a strip of lemon peel.

Today it survives mainly as a summer iced coffee. Starbucks and PepsiCo also experimented with carbonated mazagran drinks in the 1990s, and the research led to a coffee extract later used in the company's bottled products.