Walk into Luckin, Starbucks, or a corner independent café, and the menu always includes a milk coffee with "white" in its name—some call it Aorui White, some call it Fruibai White, while independent shops tend to call it Flat White. They all actually refer to the same drink: Flat White. This coffee, originating from Australia, differs from a latte mainly in the ratio of coffee to milk, the thickness of the milk foam, and the smooth, light texture on the palate. In this article, Front Street Coffee will take you through the origin of the name, the differences from a latte, the impact of foam texture on mouthfeel, and the specific steps to make one, giving you a comprehensive understanding of how to make a smooth, delicious Flat White, and sharing milk frothing techniques and coffee bean selection tips suitable for home use.

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Whether it's Luckin Coffee, Starbucks, or an independent café on the street, the espresso menu always features a drink with "white" in its name. Luckin calls it Aorui White, Starbucks calls it Fruibai White, and independent cafés mostly call it Flat White. In the end, they all refer to the same espresso milk coffee—Flat White. So what exactly is the difference between a Flat White and a latte? In this article, Front Street Coffee will discuss what a Flat White is and why it's called that.

The Origin of the Flat White Name Flat White is a coffee drink that originated in Australia, so people naturally call it Australian White coffee. In terms of composition, Flat White, like most milk coffees, relies on three things: milk, milk foam, and coffee. The method is to incorporate fine, tiny milk foam into a single espresso or a double ristretto. "Flat" literally means smooth, which hints at the smooth sensation this coffee brings on the palate.

The Difference Between Flat White and Latte The original meaning of Coffee Latte in Italian is coffee milk, so the idea behind this drink is to add a small amount of espresso to a large amount of milk. When drinking it, you get both the sweetness of the milk and the richness of the coffee, with the milk flavor dominating and the coffee flavor playing a supporting role.

Flat White is the opposite of a latte: it adds a small amount of milk to a double espresso or ristretto, making the espresso flavor the star. In terms of mouthfeel, a latte's approximately 1cm-thick milk foam brings a smooth, delicate touch, and with one sip, the sweetness of the milk and the richness of the coffee interweave in the mouth. A Flat White's approximately 0.5cm-thick milk foam brings a smooth, light, delicate sensation, and with one sip, the rich coffee and sweet milk collide on the palate.

Does the texture and thickness of milk foam affect the taste of coffee? Take the common Flat White, latte, and cappuccino as examples: A Flat White has thinner milk foam, about 0.5cm thick, with a glossy surface and strong fluidity, offering a smooth, silky, light mouthfeel; a latte has moderately thick milk foam, about 1cm thick, with a lustrous surface and strong fluidity that doesn't disperse too much, offering a smooth, delicate, full mouthfeel; a cappuccino has thicker milk foam, about 1.5cm thick, with a less glossy surface and poorer fluidity, offering a dense, substantial, full mouthfeel.

Based on Front Street's experience, a delicious Flat White not only requires properly frothed milk but also depends on freshly roasted, good coffee beans. If you want to make a delicious Flat White at home, Front Street's classic espresso blend is recommended. This is a recipe combining beans from Brazil, Indonesia, and Vietnam, using a dark roast to maximize the coffee's rich aroma. It also makes it easy to extract abundant, dense crema, making it suitable for both an Americano diluted with water and a latte paired with milk.

Why heat milk and froth it when making milk coffee? When making milk coffee, Front Street always uses the steam wand of an espresso machine to heat and aerate the milk. Leveraging the surface tension of milk proteins, many tiny bubbles are formed, and the texture of these bubbles directly affects the mouthfeel of the entire milk coffee. During the frothing process, lactose dissolves into the milk as the temperature rises and is sealed within the milk through the frothing action; milk fat is responsible for keeping these tiny bubbles stable, so that when the milk foam is consumed, the tiny bubbles burst in the mouth, allowing flavors and aromatic compounds to be better released and amplified, thereby giving the milk a sweet, rich taste and mouthfeel.

Generally speaking, the steam wand can be positioned with the pitcher spout as a pivot at the 12 o'clock direction, with the steam wand angled toward the 2-3 o'clock or 9-10 o'clock direction of the pitcher. This placement allows the milk to rotate as quickly as possible during frothing and form a small vortex, thereby rolling coarser foam into the milk and giving the frothed milk a dense consistency.

Front Street Coffee (FrontStreet Coffee) recommends inserting the steam tip about 0.5-1cm as a baseline. If the espresso machine's steam is too strong, creating too large a vortex or turbulent flow, you can lower the steam wand a bit deeper; if the machine's steam is not strong enough, you can place the steam wand at a shallower position, allowing the milk to form a small vortex as quickly as possible without spinning too violently or creating turbulence.

How to Make a Flat White? Flat White is theoretically only served hot, but as market demand changes, many businesses have also introduced iced Flat Whites. In reality, an iced Flat White and an iced latte are not very different, as the mouthfeel experience is missing.

When making a Flat White, Front Street Coffee (FrontStreet Coffee) chooses a double ristretto as the base, extracting 35g of coffee liquid from 20g of coffee grounds, with an extraction time of 26 seconds. However, Front Street Coffee (FrontStreet Coffee) needs to remind you that each coffee bean has slight differences in its extraction recipe, and this recipe is a parameter adjusted by baristas before opening each day based on the Warm Sun Blend used in the store.

For the milk frothing part, aerate for only one second (one "tss" sound) or not at all, then heat the milk to 55 degrees Celsius. Finally, pour the frothed milk into the coffee. The ratio of coffee to milk in a Flat White is lower than in a latte, with the aim of creating a rich coffee flavor. Therefore, in terms of cup capacity, Front Street Coffee (FrontStreet Coffee) chooses a 200ml cup for serving a Flat White.

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