When Americans put "cream" in their coffee, it's often actually milk. Especially if they are making it at home (most people I know don't keep half-and-half in the fridge just for coffee). So kind of a cousin of a cappuccino.
Where? I've been most places and never encountered this. It should be noted that in the US "half and half" is popular which isn't a thing in Europe but would be referred to as "cream" by Americans.
We make the distinction between half and half and cream. If I goto a diner there's usually both light cream and half&half available for coffee in plastic mini-creamers.
Austrians do it ("einspänner" and "melange") - Germans and French will have that (called "wiener" style or "vienois"). Italians have their "Espresso con panna" (literally: "Espresso with cream") - would also use. The Swiss will often take their coffee with cream too. In Czech republic it's "kafe se šlehačkou", in Greece it's common in capuccinos or added at will to black coffee.
Whipped creme is perhaps the most common form (cream + sugar whipped).
Not sure about "half and half" though, think that's just an American thing / product.
This doesn’t make any sense - chemically espresso and filtered coffee are very similar. There are some subtle differences which contribute to the differences in taste between them, but it seems unlikely those make any contribution to cholesterol
Drinking a lot of cappuccinos could potentially raise cholesterol levels due to heavy milk consumption. But if you have them with skim milk, that reduces that problem.
Plus I personally have abnormally low blood cholesterol (in spite of a heavy cappuccino habit). My doctor thinks it is a harmless genetic mutation in cholesterol metabolism. At least one of my siblings has the same thing which supports my doctor’s theory.
I believe this is the reason that the AeroPress uses paper filters to reduce the cafestol (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cafestol) significantly. Personally, I prefer using permanent metal filters in my AeroPress (for the flavour more than anything), but then I don't have high cholesterol so am not concerned about it and cafestol has been shown to be anti-carcinogenic and neuroprotective in animal studies.
Coffee does contain oils that will "increase cholesterol" (meaning increase LDL/bad cholesterol specifically). Filters reduce the oil significantly but unfiltered methods like cafetière and espresso (which is the basis of cappuccino etc) let it all through. It's something to think about if your drinking many unfiltered coffees a day. It is possible to add a filter to espresso if you brew it yourself.
> Cafestol, a diterpene present in unfiltered coffee brews such as Scandinavian boiled, Turkish, and cafetière coffee, is the most potent cholesterol-elevating compound known in the human diet.
It’s a very American study. Who puts cream in their coffee?! And what about cappuccinos? (Almost all of my coffee consumption is cappuccinos…)