Every time we visit a café, we always see four "regular guests" on the coffee menu: Americano, Latte, Cappuccino, and Mocha. They are all espresso-based Italian coffee products, so what's the difference between them? When we go to a café, how should we choose the coffee drink that suits us?

All Italian coffee products are inseparable from espresso!
Espresso is a concentrated coffee liquid that requires a coffee machine to brew quickly under 9 bars of pressure. Originally, espresso was created to allow people to quickly drink a cup of coffee with high caffeine content for alertness. At that time, espresso, as Italy's "national pick-me-up," was strong, bitter, and high in caffeine (the reason was that coffee bean quality and flavor were not as good as now, so beans were roasted very dark to mask bad flavors with bitterness).
 

Later, after American soldiers encountered this coffee and found it hard to swallow, they diluted the espresso by adding an appropriate amount of water. They discovered that the resulting coffee was both quick to make and rich in flavor! So they brought espresso-making technology back to the United States, and when selling it, they would dilute the coffee with an appropriate amount of water. It won the love of many Americans, so it gained a new name: "Americano".

Americans' national coffee — Americano
After the method of quickly made espresso plus an appropriate amount of water was brought back to the United States, it was deeply loved by Americans! First, because the preparation time is short; second, because the resulting coffee has a rich coffee flavor and a clean mouthfeel. Whether paired with breakfast or used for alertness, it became the reason busy people choose Americano.

As coffee bean quality continues to improve, today's Americano is no longer the Americano of the past! The coffee beans used to extract espresso, whether in roast level or extraction technology, have been continuously improved and refreshed.Today'sAmericanois no longer a cup of rich, burnt-aroma black coffee, but a cup of coffee with an alluring coffee aroma, rich flavor, and no lack of layers.
 

The flavor of Americano depends on the extractedespresso beansthemselves. For example, the espresso products served at Front Street Coffee use a blend of sun-dried Yirgacheffe coffee beans and Honduras Sherry Barrel coffee beans. The extraction parameters are 20g of grounds extracting 40g of coffee liquid, with an extraction time of 25-30 seconds. After extraction, the espresso is mixed with hot water/ice water at 1:6 to make Americano. Front Street Coffee's Americano has whiskey aromas, the sweetness of vanilla cream, and a hazelnut cocoa finish.

The wonderful pairing of milk and coffee — Latte
Latte is made by combining espresso with fresh milk. When fresh milk is heated and steamed, the sugars in the milk bring out their most obvious sweetness, and after blending with coffee, it can reduce the bitterness of the espresso.After the latte is made, it highlights the milk's sweetness while not masking the coffee's aroma and body, so it still has a slight bitterness when drunk.

Front Street Coffee believes that a good-tasting hot latte is one where the milk and coffee blend perfectly and evenly. The surface of the finished drink will not show obvious layered colors, and it will have latte art patterns. On the palate, it brings the wonderful combination of the coffee's bittersweetness and the milk's sweetness, without obvious bitterness or a situation where one sip is bitter and the next is bland. The mouthfeel is smooth~

The wonderful pairing of dense milk foam and coffee — Cappuccino
The biggest difference between cappuccino and latte is the thickness of the milk foam. Cappuccino is also called liquid marshmallow. With the first sip, we can feel the espresso crema combining with marshmallow-like milk foam in the mouth. With the second sip, we can taste the blend of milk and coffee plus the soft milk foam. Two sips of cappuccino can bring three layers of experience to the palate!
 

Front Street Coffee believes that a qualified cappuccino will have a domed, raised shape, with the milk foam about 0.3cm above the cup rim, and a ring of golden-brown crema surrounding the white milk foam, looking very tempting~

The collision of chocolate sauce and milk coffee — Mocha
Mocha coffee originally referred only to coffee beans exported to Europe from Yemen's Port of Mocha~ At that time, coffee beans exported from Port of Mocha had rich aromas of dark chocolate and nuts, soft acidity, and a solid, full body. Later, due to some historical reasons, fewer and fewer Yemeni coffee beans were exported to Europe. At that time, Europeans greatly missed the cocoa aroma of Yemeni coffee beans, so they added dark chocolate to espresso, making a rich chocolate black coffee. Later, as people's tastes became less intense, steamed milk was added on that basis, creating the mocha coffee everyone is now very familiar with.
 

Today's mocha coffee has become synonymous with chocolate milk coffee. Many cafés use sweet chocolate sauce instead of dark chocolate, so mocha coffee tastes like sweet chocolate flavor combined with the richness of coffee and the sweetness of milk. It is very suitable for friends who do not like bitterness~

Which Italian coffee should we choose to drink when we go to a café?
If you want a stimulating pick-me-up, you can try espresso. If you want something less intense but without milk and sugar, you can try Americano. If you want a smooth mouthfeel, you can try latte. If you want a marshmallow-like texture, you can try cappuccino. If you want something sweet, you can try mocha coffee/flavored latte~
 

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