A Viennese Melange is coffee with warm milk and a topping of milk foam. If that is the drink you want in a Vienna coffeehouse, look for Melange on the menu. The milk mixed into the coffee and the foam on top are two parts of the preparation. Vollpension's coffee lexicon.
What goes into the cup
Austria Tourism's glossary identifies a Kleiner Mokka, also called a Kleiner Schwarzer, as a single espresso. If a Melange description uses either name, read it as a reference to the espresso base. Austria Tourism's coffee glossary
Vollpension describes its Melange as an extended Mokka with warm milk and a crown of milk foam. Its separate entry for a Verlängerter explains that extending a Mokka means adding hot water. Read those descriptions together and you can follow the preparation: coffee first, warm milk added to it, then milk foam at the surface. Vollpension's coffee descriptions
Why the recipe wording varies
Julius Meinl describes a small espresso in a large cup topped with creamy foamed milk. That wording differs from Vollpension's description of extended coffee. Both describe a coffee drink with foamed milk, but they do not specify the coffee base in exactly the same way. Julius Meinl's classic recipes
Use these examples as a guide to the drink's ingredients. If the amount of milk or the coffee preparation will decide your order, ask the café how it makes its Melange. You could ask, "Do you use a short espresso or add hot water?" Ask about the cup size and the amount of warm milk separately if those matter to you.
Milk foam or whipped cream?
Julius Meinl's Franziskaner has espresso and warm milk, with whipped cream replacing the milk foam of a Melange. Warm milk remains in the cup in its Franziskaner recipe; the change is at the top. Meinl's Franziskaner recipe
For the milk-foam drink described here, ask for a Melange; for whipped cream, check whether the menu has a Franziskaner and read its description. If the menu leaves the topping unclear, ask the server whether the cup comes with milk foam or whipped cream.
