Collection: Mignardises

A mignardise is what arrives with the coffee rather than before it. Small, sweet, and not quite dessert.

Everything here was chosen for the cup. Each one is bitter or dry enough somewhere to hold up against a dark roast instead of dissolving into it.

The Austrian School did its thinking in Viennese coffee houses — Menger, Böhm-Bawerk, Wieser and later Mises, working out marginal utility and time preference at café tables. Manner's wafers, made in Vienna since 1898, are what sat on the saucer. Alongside them: Lübeck marzipan with four espresso pieces in the box, Saronno amaretti from a recipe kept secret since 1718, a Mozartkugel, Belgian speculoos, Swiss dark chocolate, French cane sugar for the cup itself, and whole espresso beans shelled in dark chocolate.