Latte his essay "Italian Journeys". Kenneth Davids maintains that "...breakfast drinks of this kind have existed in Europe for generations, but the (commercial) caffè version of this drink is an American invention". The French term "café au lait" was used in cafés in several countries in western continental Europe from 1900 onward, while the French themselves started using the term "café crème" for coffee with milk or cream. The Austrian-Hungarian empire (Central Europe) had its own terminology for the coffees being served in coffee houses, while in German homes it was still called "Milchkaffee". The Italians used the term "caffè latte"
Latte "Caffè latte", "Milchkaffee", "café au lait" and "café con leche" are domestic terms of traditional ways of drinking coffee, usually as part of breakfast in the home. Public cafés in Europe and the US it seems have no mention of the terms until the 20th century, although "Kapuziner" is mentioned in Austrian coffee houses in Vienna and Trieste in the 2nd half of 1700s as "coffee with cream, spices and sugar" (being the origin of the Italian cappuccino). According to the "Oxford English Dictionary", the term "caffè latte" was first used in English in 1867 by William Dean Howells in