For those who don't drink coffee often, ordering coffee is not an easy task. The dazzling array of items on the menu is dizzying—what's the difference between them? Is Americano the coffee Americans love most? What's the difference between an Americano and a latte? Today, Front Street Coffee is here to chat with you about the differences between the two.

Latte coffee andAmericanodifferences

Both lattes and Americanos are derivatives of espresso. The biggest difference between the two is that the former adds milk to espresso, while the latter adds water to coffee. Latte coffee is one of the most representative drinks in the milk coffee series, and Americano is one of the most representative drinks in the black coffee series.

What is espresso?

Espresso can be simply understood as an ultra-concentrated, ultra-small-volume coffee liquid. Authentic espresso requires a pressure-based extraction coffee machine, allowing hot water under sealed pressure (above 9 bar) to quickly pass through extremely finely ground coffee powder, extracting a rich coffee liquid.

Ordinary espresso is mostly made with blended coffee beans, for reasons of low cost and stable flavor quality. As coffee consumers pursue flavor further, some coffee shops nowadays begin to use single-origin coffee beans (single-origin coffee bean production) for espresso, also known as SOE (Single Origin Espresso).

The espresso products at Front Street Coffee stores all use blended coffee beans—a medium-dark roasted "Sunflower Warm Sun Espresso Blend" made with 30% Ethiopian Yirgacheffe sun-dried Red Cherry coffee beans + 70% Honduras Sherry coffee beans. The purpose is to hope that all espresso products can remain stable for a long time, so that every guest can always drink coffee with consistent quality.

The extraction parameters of espresso need to be adjusted according to different coffee machines and grinders. Here, Front Street Coffee provides an initial reference data for espresso extraction: use 20g of powder at a 1:2 ratio & 9 bar pressure to extract 40g of coffee liquid, in 25-30 seconds. Adjust accordingly based on the flavor performance of the coffee after actual extraction is completed.

The Front Street Coffee store uses a Q18 grinder and a Lelit brand coffee machine. The daily extraction parameters are roughly 19.8-20g of extremely finely ground coffee powder to extract 35-38g of coffee liquid, in about 27-30 seconds. The espresso extracted from the Warm Sun Blend coffee beans shows a rich fermented wine aroma, the sweet and sour of berries, a smoothness like vanilla cream, and a finish like nuts and caramel.

What is latte coffee?

Latte coffee is simply understood as coffee with milk added. The method is also very simple: add heated and frothed milk with fine milk foam to the extracted espresso, and then you can make various styles of latte art patterns.

The espresso made from Front Street Coffee's Warm Sun Blend, after adding hot milk, has a very obvious sweetness, accompanied by a soft fermented wine aroma, with a texture as soft and silky as vanilla cream, and a finish of hazelnut chocolate; after adding cold milk, the latte coffee will show a soft vanilla cream + whiskey-like smoothness and aroma, soft berry acidity, and a finish of nutty caramel.

What isAmericano?

Americanois simply understood as espresso diluted with water. Add hot water/ice water to the extracted espresso to adjust the concentration of the coffee, and you can choose the proportion of water added according to your preference.

For daily store offerings, Front Street Coffee uses Warm Sun Blend coffee beans and adds hot water/ice water mixture at a 1:5 ratio. The flavor of hot Americano shows vanilla cream, fermented-like aroma, slight berry acidity, and a finish of caramel dark chocolate. The flavor of iced Americano shows whiskey aroma, soft berry acidity, and a finish of hazelnut chocolate.

Why isAmericanoso bitter?

The flavor of Americano depends on the taste of the espresso. The flavor direction of espresso itself is rich and mellow, and everyone perceives bitterness differently, so as long as it's not an unpleasant bitterness, it's normal.

If there is an abnormal bitterness that makes people feel uncomfortable, it may be that the espresso has not been extracted reasonably, and it can be adjusted by increasing the water dilution ratio. If it still tastes uncomfortable, then the extraction parameters of the espresso need to be adjusted.

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