How does Caffe Shakerato differ from an Italian cafe latte?

On June 14 Starbucks China launched an Iced Shaken Espresso category with two flavors, Sea Salt Caramel and Tahitian Vanilla. The drink's original name is Caffe Shakerato, Italy's iced espresso, shaken with ice and syrup in a cocktail shaker to build a dense foam that looks and tastes something like dark beer. Starbucks moved it from secret menu item to regular product.

Unlike an Italian cafe latte, which pairs espresso with steamed milk, Shakerato uses no milk at all, so the foam comes only from shaking. That puts heavy demands on baristas: plenty of ice and sustained shaking are needed for a fine texture, and peak hours make it harder. Reviews split between praise for the taste and complaints about coarse foam. Home versions can skip the shaker technique with a jar and hard shaking.

On June 14, Starbucks China officially launched a brand-new iced coffee category, "Iced Shaken Espresso," featuring two flavors: Sea Salt Caramel and Tahitian Vanilla. This drink's real name is Caffe Shakerato, Italy's national iced espresso, shaken in a cocktail shaker to create a dense foam, with a taste and appearance resembling dark beer. Starbucks turned it from a secret menu item into a regular product, sparking heated discussion on social platforms. The preparation process places extremely high demands on baristas' technique—lots of ice and endless shaking are required to achieve a fine foam, and it's even more of a test during peak hours. Consumer reviews are polarized: some praise the taste, while others complain the foam is coarse. This article explains in detail the origins, spread, and production difficulties of Caffe Shakerato, and shares an easy way to recreate it at home.

On June 14, Starbucks China officially announced the launch of a brand-new iced coffee category—the "Iced Shaken Espresso" series. The first two products unveiled are Sea Salt Caramel Iced Shaken Espresso and Tahitian Vanilla Iced Shaken Espresso.

Starbucks is one of the earliest brands to bring the secret menu into the public eye, and even helped the secret menu gain official status. According to a previous report by International Finance News, Starbucks spokeswoman Maggie Jantzen revealed in an interview with CNBC that because of the popularity of the secret menu, Starbucks baristas are able to master the methods for making more than 170,000 customized drinks.

However, it is precisely the appeal of these personalized customized drinks that has led some of their recipes to eventually be added to Starbucks' official menu. This "Iced Shaken Espresso" series was also officially launched because more and more people were ordering it.

This series actually has its own original name—Caffe Shakerato. As a national drink of Italians, drinking espresso is an indispensable daily ritual for many Italians. But in the scorching summer, people want a glass of iced espresso to cool off, yet they are unwilling to let ice water overly dilute the coffee's original flavor.

So some Italian bartenders borrowed cocktail-making techniques and poured freshly extracted espresso into a shaker filled with ice cubes and an appropriate amount of syrup, shaking it. Before the espresso has time to react, it is baptized by ice. This preserves the rich aroma and flavor of the espresso while adding a hint of sweetness and producing a rich, dense foam, making the coffee resemble dark beer in both taste and appearance.

Of course, every bartender who makes Caffe Shakerato has a secret recipe, and some even add sweet liqueurs of different flavors to make alcoholic coffee specials. Later, this method gradually spread to other parts of Europe and slowly became popular.

In every country it reaches, locals adjust the drink according to public taste, adding various kinds of milk or plant-based milk and swapping in syrups of different flavors. Caffe Shakerato has therefore become a signature drink in many coffee shops in Europe and America, and it is also the most primitive prototype of iced cappuccino.

But note that it is not easy to shake out a fine, dense foam for this coffee. It greatly tests the shaking technique of the barista or bartender, and during the shaking process you must use lots of ice, lots of ice, lots of ice! Only with enough ice can you ensure that the espresso cools down while not being overly diluted by ice melting too quickly.

The shaking technique also matters: you need to shake along an ♾️-shaped trajectory to produce a fine, dense foam. Because of this, although this drink has been popular abroad for many years, few coffee shops are willing to put it on the menu.

This time Starbucks has put Iced Shaken Espresso on the menu, which really is bold. After all, making a good cup is not easy; even if customers are not particular about the foam texture, it still takes a lot out of baristas, especially during peak "rush" hours.

After "Iced Shaken Espresso" was launched, it quickly became a topic of casual conversation on social platforms. On the one hand, it breaks the traditional method of making espresso, refreshes the public's understanding of how espresso is made, and may also become a new object of imitation for coffee shop product innovation; on the other hand, what this cup of coffee drinks is not coffee, but the barista's confidence.

Many netizens discussed the production process and final product experience of the "Iced Shaken Espresso" they bought. Some felt like suckers, saying it was actually just a flavored latte with an extra layer of coarse foam.

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Some netizens said that during the making of their cup, the barista was very perfunctory and there was no foam at all.

Some even posted that, without informing them during preparation, the barista replaced the oat milk in the original recipe with whole milk, and did not explain at pickup that whole milk had been used. If the customer is lactose intolerant, this situation is really...

Launching "Iced Shaken Espresso" is indeed very helpful for the brand's new round of going viral, but production cannot guarantee that every cup has the corresponding quality. Whether it can ultimately become a permanent menu item still needs time to verify.

Is this coffee good or not? Everyone has their own opinion. The only thing certain is that the barista who makes this product will gain confidence, transform from socially anxious to socially confident, and also perfect their arm muscle definition quite a bit. In the future, they will have one more career option—bartender.

And everyone can easily make a cup of Caffe Shakerato in daily life. Find a sealable cup, preferably a dedicated shaker, add more than half a cup of ice cubes, try to choose smaller ice cubes, then add syrup or sweet liqueur according to preference, and finally pour in espresso made from freeze-dried coffee powder or pre-made espresso liquid, and you can start shake shake shake—stress-relieving and money-saving!

(I must have opened it the wrong way)

Try again? No no, I'm going to do laundry...

Image source: Internet, Starbucks China

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