Why Do Espresso, Americano and Flat White Share One Base?

Nearly every drink on a cafe menu, from latte and cappuccino to americano, flat white and Dirty, starts as espresso. Espresso means fast in Italian, and the drink appeared in the early twentieth century when the espresso machine, driven by the Industrial Revolution, first made coffee quickly. It became the foundation of the entire Italian coffee system.

Americano traces to World War II, when American soldiers in Italy found straight espresso too strong and asked for water to be added, producing a diluted espresso they preferred to instant coffee. Mocha, macchiato, caramel macchiato, flat white and Dirty followed different routes through Italian shops, Australian coffee culture and Japanese creative inspiration.

Walk into any coffee shop, and those familiar names on the menu—latte, cappuccino, flat white, americano—all actually stem from the same base: espresso. But have you ever wondered why these coffees are called what they are? And what origins each one has? This article will take you through the birth stories of espresso, americano, cappuccino, latte, mocha, macchiato, caramel macchiato, flat white, and Dirty, from Italian coffee shops to Australian coffee culture, and then to Japanese creative inspiration, to understand the historical context behind each cup of coffee. After learning about these origins, perhaps you'll taste more flavors the next time you savor them.

Espresso

Among all Italian coffees, espresso is the first one you need to understand, because it is the foundation of the entire Italian coffee system. Without it, lattes, americanos, flat whites, and other drinks we know well would be impossible.

Espresso means "fast" in Italian. Before the twentieth century, making a cup of coffee took quite a long time. If you wanted coffee to wake you up, you first had to patiently wait through the lengthy brewing process.

Clearly, some people couldn't wait that long. So, in the early twentieth century, driven by the European Industrial Revolution, the espresso machine came into being. For the first time, people discovered that coffee could be made so quickly. Of course, the coffee machines of that time were far inferior to modern equipment in precision and extraction pressure, but in that era, their speed was already comparable to a cheetah. Therefore, people named this quickly made coffee Espresso, meaning "extremely fast."

After the coffee machine was introduced, espresso quickly became popular, and coffee shops sprang up all over Italy, allowing people to enjoy the deliciousness of espresso.

Americano

Time moved on to the period of World War II, when American soldiers walked into an Italian coffee shop and ordered coffee, only to find that the espresso served was too strong, completely different in concentration from the instant coffee they usually drank, making it hard for them to accept.

So, they had no choice but to ask the coffee shop to dilute the espresso with water. The diluted coffee won the favor of the American soldiers, as it tasted much better than instant coffee. Gradually, more and more American soldiers requested espresso with water added, and to make ordering easier, the coffee shop called this water-diluted espresso—"Americano."

Cappuccino

Cappuccino and latte are both milk coffees made with espresso and milk, but because latte is so famous, people often mistakenly think that latte came first and cappuccino came later. However, the truth is the opposite: cappuccino was the one that appeared first.

Cappuccino is a direct translation from the Italian "Cappuccino," which means hood. When people first tried adding steamed milk to coffee, they found that the mixed color was very similar to the color of the robes of the Franciscan order, and the foam standing on the surface of the coffee resembled the hood of the robe. Thus, this coffee with steamed milk added was named after the hood: "Cappuccino."

Latte

Latte can be said to be the most favored milk coffee, bar none. Latte means milk in Italian, and because a large amount of milk is added, Italians called this coffee with a lot of milk "Coffee Latte."

However, people outside Italy, for convenience, shortened it to "Latte," and the name latte has been used ever since. But you should know that if you order a latte in an Italian coffee shop by directly saying "Latte," the probability of receiving a cup of milk is very high.

Mocha

Originally, Mocha referred to the port city of "Mocha Port" in Yemen. For over three hundred years starting from the seventeenth century, Mocha Port was an important hub for coffee trade, and almost all coffee in the world was traded through Mocha Port. To prove that the coffee beans were legitimately shipped from Mocha Port, every bag of beans exported from there was marked with the word "Mocha" to indicate the origin.

But gradually, as coffee cultivation began around the world, Mocha Port lost its dominant position in the coffee trade, and coupled with the rule of the Ottoman Empire, coffee beans produced in Mocha became scarce, and people could no longer easily drink Mocha coffee. So, to relive the delicious taste in their memory, people used chocolate to imitate the chocolate flavor of Mocha coffee, and thus "Mocha coffee" was born.

Macchiato

"Macchiato" means "marked." When the concept of specialty coffee had not yet emerged, coffee did not taste as good as it does now, and many people found it unbearably bitter after drinking. So, someone suggested adding a little milk to the coffee to neutralize the bitterness.

But the addition of a small amount of milk made no obvious difference in appearance, and baristas found it hard to tell whether this espresso had milk added. So, to prevent confusion, the barista would put a little milk foam on top of this espresso with a bit of milk, using the foam as a mark, and thus macchiato got its name.

But as coffee gradually became more specialty-oriented, the taste of coffee was no longer "bitter to the end," and high-quality coffee replaced bitterness with "aroma, sweetness, and richness." Therefore, people no longer needed to add milk to neutralize the bitterness, and macchiato faded from people's view.

Caramel Macchiato

Many years later, a coffee called "Caramel Macchiato" appeared on the market. But it is not a derivative of macchiato, but a completely new flavored coffee. Its method is based on a latte, with added caramel, vanilla syrup, and other ingredients combined. Thus, it only borrowed the meaning of macchiato, not the method. After adding multiple syrups, the entire cup of coffee is very sweet, and the meaning thus became "sweet mark" (caramel macchiato).

Flat White

Australians prefer a rich taste in coffee, but traditional Italian coffee dilutes the concentration too much, obviously unable to satisfy their "heavy" needs. So, they developed their own rich coffee products to satisfy themselves. For example, the "Long Black" often shared by Front Street Coffee is a richer version of americano. And "Flat White" is a richer version of milk coffee.

Although traditional Italian coffee already had rich milk coffees like cappuccino, for Australians, the overly thick and dense milk foam was not the texture they wanted. So, after increasing the concentration and flattening the milk foam, "Flat White" was born.

Dirty

Dirty can be said to be the only coffee product in this article that was an iced drink from the moment it was created, and it comes from Mr. Katsuyuki Tanaka of Japan. According to Mr. Tanaka in his book, the core of Dirty coffee lies in the combination of iced milk and hot espresso. The iced milk has a very noticeable high sweetness, paired with the extremely mellow texture and rich coffee flavor of the hot espresso. Although the contrast between the two is quite large, it is not jarring.

When the iced milk fully catches the hot espresso, the gradual falling of the espresso resembles the traces of tears shed by an angel. So, Mr. Tanaka named it "Angle Stain" (Angel's Tears), and after spreading to China, it gradually evolved into "Dirty" (dirty coffee).

The above are some of the more common Italian coffees on coffee shop menus. Once we recognize and understand their origins, we can better appreciate their wonderful qualities when drinking them.

- END - Front Street Coffee

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