Is Australian White Coffee Stronger Than a Flat White?

Australian White Coffee and Flat White are both milk coffees, and the differences come down to bean choice, cup size, coffee base concentration, and milk foam thickness. Flat White originated in Australia, where baristas adapted Italian coffee to local taste; a Latte, by name, is simply milk in Italian and spread worldwide with Italian coffee culture.

Flat White is served hot only, since a thin, glossy microfoam layer is central to the drink and does not hold up over ice. Cup size and base concentration separate it from a Latte: a smaller volume with a stronger coffee base keeps the milk from masking the espresso. Large chains helped popularise the style, and it now appears on menus across China.

Flat White and Latte both belong to the milk coffee category, yet they often leave people confused. From the perspective of Front Street, this article sorts out the similarities and differences between Luckin's Australian White and Flat White coffee, explains why Flat White coffee is only made hot, and includes a list of the top ten best-tasting Luckin coffees. The article compares dimensions such as coffee bean selection, cup size, coffee base concentration, and milk foam thickness, while also introducing how Front Street's classic Italian blend performs when making Flat White, helping coffee enthusiasts understand the essential differences between these two milk coffees in one go.

To learn more about specialty coffee, welcome to follow: Front Street Coffee (Frontsteet Coffee)

Top ten best-tasting Luckin coffees: Coconut Latte, Cheese Latte, Velvet Latte, Iced Americano, Okinawa Brown Sugar Velvet Latte, Sea Salt Cheese Thick Milk Latte, Coconut Cloud Latte, Yirgacheffe Dirty, Flat White Coffee, Latte Coffee.

A reader previously left a message for Front Street, saying, "I've never been able to figure out exactly how Flat White and Latte differ. I hope Front Street can explain it." So this issue, at this friend's request, we'll clarify the differences between the two in a fairly straightforward way.

As everyone knows, Latte is the most common type of milk coffee in Italian coffee — "Latte" in Italian literally means milk. Basically, no café menu is complete without Latte. Anyone who has been to a coffee shop is familiar with Latte.

The original name of Flat White coffee is actually "Flat White," a specialty coffee native to Australia. It was created after Italian coffee spread to Australia, when local baristas adjusted the original Italian coffee framework to create a milk coffee suited to local tastes. Australia's Flat White was initially similar to France's Café au Lait (Cafeaulait), both being regional milk coffees; whereas Latte spread worldwide along with the global popularity of Italian coffee, becoming a drink familiar to consumers in every country.

Today, Flat White coffee can be seen in major coffee shops across China. Front Street believes that large chain brands like Starbucks played a significant role in driving this. In 2015, Starbucks launched a drink in China called "馥芮白" (Furui Bai), which is Flat White — "馥芮" is a transliteration of "flat." This product quickly raised Flat White's profile in China and made it a popular coffee capable of rivaling Latte.

Since Starbucks has registered "馥芮白" as a Chinese trademark, other domestic businesses cannot use this name for promotion, so in Chinese, flat white is usually called Flat White coffee, meaning milk coffee from Australia. Of course, some businesses translate it literally as Flat White coffee or Little White coffee. Luckin also launched its own Flat White, named Australian White coffee.

What is the difference between Latte and Australian White/Flat White coffee?

Milk is added to Flat White coffee to highlight the coffee's own flavor — coffee is the protagonist, and milk plays only a supporting role. Therefore, Flat White coffee tastes more coffee-forward and richer. Precisely because the two aim to highlight different flavor focuses, to achieve their respective effects, they also differ in appearance, ratio, and preparation.

- Coffee Beans

In Australian coffee shops, when making Latte, baristas tend to use blended beans to present the authentic Italian Latte style; when making Flat White, they switch to a bean with prominent flavor, or one that isn't roasted as dark. Because Flat White needs to highlight coffee flavor, baristas want customers to taste a vivid, rich, and sweet coffee flavor, not a balanced bitterness.

For making Flat White coffee, Front Street's classic Italian blend is recommended. This recipe combines beans from three origins — Brazil, Indonesia, and Vietnam — and uses a dark roast, which maximizes the coffee's rich aroma and makes it easy to extract abundant, dense crema. Whether making an Americano diluted with water or a Latte paired with milk, it's very suitable. It can be purchased at Front Street's Taobao store or Front Street's Tmall flagship store.

If you usually drink Latte and one day suddenly order a Flat White, only to find the cup the barista hands you is one size smaller, don't think the shop is being stingy — Flat White's cup size is inherently smaller than Latte's. Taking Front Street's output as an example, the standard cup size for Latte is 350ml, while the standard cup size for Flat White is 200ml.

- Flat White's coffee base is stronger

Latte uses the standard Espresso common in Italian coffee as its base, while Flat White uses Ristretto, which is stronger than Espresso, as its base. Ristretto can be understood as extracting only the middle-to-front portion of an Espresso, yielding a more concentrated coffee liquid; extracting only the middle-to-front portion also enhances the coffee's acidity and roast flavors, while reducing the extraction of high-molecular-weight carbohydrates — in plain terms, making the sensory flavors more prominent.

Taking Front Street's Espresso parameters as an example, it's 20 grams of coffee grounds extracting 40 grams of coffee liquid. Ristretto's parameters are 20 grams of coffee grounds extracting 28-30 grams of coffee liquid.

Taking Front Street Coffee's output as an example, Latte is 2 shots of Espresso (40g) plus 260ml of milk — a large amount of milk, presenting overall as coffee-flavored milk. Flat White is 2 shots of Ristretto (30g), which is stronger than Espresso, plus 170ml of milk — tasting more coffee-forward and fuller.

The "Flat" in Flat White actually describes its finished state. "Flat" means level or flat, because Flat White's milk foam is very thin, with insufficient surface tension to make it dome up — it can only stay level with the cup rim, hence called "Flat." Latte's milk foam thickness is about 1cm, while Flat White's milk foam thickness is about 0.5cm.

The above content is compiled by CoffeeHunters, a coffee news website.