What Is Flat Red in Specialty Coffee?

Flat Red is a Ukrainian coffee drink created by Vadym Granovskiy that mimics red wine without alcohol. Pomegranate juice and fresh orange juice replace the wine, paired with espresso. The result is a pale red cup with a fermented, vinous aroma and fruity acidity rather than milk-based sweetness, which keeps it distinct from drinks like Flat White.

The recipe took shape after an early test with Sicilian blood orange juice turned astringent when combined with coffee. Granovskiy switched the red component to pomegranate juice and added seasonal oranges sourced from Turkey, India and Israel. The drink stays little known outside Ukraine, but its juice ratio and steam heating steps can be repeated at home, an option more specialty coffee drinkers are exploring.

In today's coffee culture, where new trends keep emerging, drinks like Frappuccino, Flat White, and Dirty have taken turns rising to fame, yet one pale red coffee is rarely mentioned by domestic enthusiasts—it is Flat Red from Ukraine. This drink was inspired by locals' love for red wine; its inventor, Vadym Granovskiy, used pomegranate juice and orange juice instead of alcohol, paired with espresso, to create a unique coffee that resembles red wine in color and carries a fermented vinous aroma and fruity acidity. In this article, Front Street will guide you through the background of Flat Red's creation, its making logic, and a complete reproduction of its recipe, from the juice mixing ratio to steam heating and foaming, and finally the tasting experience, presented one by one. If you also want to try a cup of distinctive Ukrainian-style coffee at home, why not follow Front Street's steps and make it yourself.

Waves of coffee trends keep surging in, and every café is working hard to discover the next drink that can set the market on fire. From Frappuccino to Flat White, and then to Dirty, the rise of these drinks has been obvious to all, but one pale red coffee seems to have remained undiscussed all along. Today, Front Street will introduce you to this coffee from Ukraine—"Flat Red."

"Flat Red" is not well known outside Ukraine. Its logic of creation is somewhat similar to Flat White: Ukrainians love red wine, drinking nearly 3.2 billion bottles each year, and many locals even make red wine at home. It was precisely based on this food culture that a café came up with the idea of making a coffee drink that looks like red wine and tastes close to red wine, but contains no alcohol.

According to Flat Red's inventor, Vadym Granovskiy, when he first developed this new drink, in order to make the final product more recognizable and interesting, he decided not to add milk while pursuing a pale red coffee appearance. He first tried making it with Sicilian blood orange juice, but found that freshly squeezed blood orange juice had an obvious astringency and did not taste good when combined with coffee. However, the combination of citrus juice and coffee itself was outstanding, so the red part was changed to pomegranate juice, paired with juice squeezed from seasonal oranges purchased from Turkey, India, Israel, and other places. The two juices not only made the coffee's sweet-and-sour layers richer, but after heating they also presented a soft texture similar to red wine, along with a faint fermented vinous aroma.

In the inventor's own shop, when this Flat Red is served, customers can see the barista manually selecting, washing, cutting, and preparing the fruit throughout the entire process. These few minutes of preparation are not only pleasing to the eye, but also steadily raise customers' anticipation. When this pale red drink is brought to the table, people are moved by its high aesthetic appeal and unique flavor after tasting it, take photos and share them on social platforms, and Flat Red quickly became popular in Ukraine, with more and more local cafés beginning to serve this drink as well. Especially during Ukraine's long winter, this cup of coffee with warm fermented aroma and sweet-and-sour taste has become an even more favored choice among locals.

However, in the domestic market, Flat Red is simply too niche, so it does not have a commonly used Chinese name like "Flat White" Australian white coffee.

Referring to the Flat Red recipe shared by Vadym, Front Street was also eager to try and explore the depths of this cup of coffee. Limited by conditions, Front Street could not fully use freshly squeezed pomegranate juice and orange juice as Vadym emphasized, and could only settle for bottled fresh juice, then mix pomegranate juice and orange juice at 1:1 and refrigerate for a while.

Extract a double shot of Espresso and pour it into a cup for later use. Front Street still chose "Sunflower Warm Sun Blend Espresso Beans." Besides rich vanilla, creamy aroma, and berry notes, the espresso itself also carries a hint of whisky vinous aroma. Today's extraction parameters are: 19.8g coffee grounds, extracting 37g coffee liquid in 29 seconds.

Take out the juice mixed at 1:1 and pour about 160g into a milk pitcher. Use a steam wand to heat the juice to 55°C and create a thin layer of foam, with the foam thickness at about 0.3–0.5cm. In Front Street's actual operation, we found that creating fine, dense foam is indeed very challenging, so just do your best.

Finally, pour the hot juice into the espresso and mix evenly, and a cup of Flat Red from Ukraine is fully reproduced. Visually, the only similarity between this cup of coffee and Flat White is that both are covered with a thin layer of foam that brings a silky mouthfeel, which is probably also the reason it is named with the word "Flat."

In actual tasting, the first thing you feel is the bright acidity of the orange juice, followed by a full and rich vinous fermentation aroma. After swallowing, the coffee aroma and fruity acidic fermentation aroma remaining in the mouth are very long-lasting. Because the orange juice Front Street selected also contains a few fruit sacs, biting through these particles also releases hot original-flavor orange juice, directly maxing out the experience.

So do you now know this coffee drink from Ukraine, "Flat Red"? Friends who are interested should quickly try reproducing it!

- END - Front Street Coffee

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