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Coffee Drinks
Every drink has a definition, a ratio and an argument about it. This is where we settle what a cortado actually is, how a red eye differs from a black eye, and why the same espresso becomes four different drinks depending on what happens next. Each one links to the equipment that makes it properly.
Espresso drinks
Every drink built on a shot, from the shots themselves to the cappuccino, the latte and the small milk drinks in between.
Espresso shotsAll 6 →
What Is a Doppio Espresso?Two shots pulled as one, in a bigger basket. It is the default in most cafes now, and the reason has more to do with the grinder than with strength.
What Is a Lungo Coffee?An espresso pulled long: the same coffee, roughly twice the water, and a cup that trades intensity for length.
What Is Blonde Espresso?A lighter-roasted espresso made popular by one coffee chain. What changes in the cup, what happens to the caffeine, and how to get the same thing elsewhere.
What Is a Bica? Portugal's EspressoOrder a bica in Lisbon and you get an espresso. Order one in Porto and you may get a blank look. The word, the cup, and how Portugal drinks it.
What Is a Gran Lungo?A Nespresso cup size rather than a coffee tradition. What the 150ml button actually does, and why longer is not the same as bigger.
Turkish Coffee vs EspressoBoth are small, dark and strong, and almost nothing else about them is the same. One is filtered by pressure, the other is not filtered at all.
Cappuccino
Flat White vs Cappuccino: What Actually DiffersNot the size, and not the amount of milk. The difference is the texture of the foam, and it changes everything about how the coffee comes through.
Wet vs Dry Cappuccino: What the Words MeanThe same cup, the same espresso, a different balance of milk and foam. It is a real difference in the cup, and you can feel it before you taste it.
Cappuccino vs Mocha: What the Chocolate ChangesBoth start with espresso and steamed milk. One adds a thick cap of foam, the other adds chocolate, and that single ingredient changes nearly everything else.
Cappuccino vs Frappuccino: Not the Same FamilyOne is a hot Italian espresso drink with a definition. The other is a blended trademark. The similar names are a coincidence of marketing.
Latte
What Is a Breve Coffee?An espresso drink steamed with half-and-half instead of milk. Richer, sweeter and heavier, and a different thing to steam.
Americano vs Latte: Water or MilkSame espresso, two different things added to it. Which you want depends on whether you are trying to lengthen the coffee or soften it.
What Is a Caffe Misto?Brewed coffee topped with an equal amount of steamed milk. The chain-cafe name for a very old drink, and a lighter alternative to a latte.
Flat white
- Flat White vs Cappuccino: What Actually DiffersNot the size, and not the amount of milk. The difference is the texture of the foam, and it changes everything about how the coffee comes through.
Cortado vs Flat WhiteTwo small espresso drinks that look alike on a menu. The difference is how much milk goes in and what has been done to it, and it changes the cup more than the size suggests.
Small milk drinksAll 5 →
What Is a Cortado?Espresso cut with an equal amount of warm milk. No foam to speak of, no latte art, and a glass rather than a cup.
What Is a Piccolo Latte?An Australian invention: a single shot in a small latte glass, designed so baristas could taste their own espresso all day without drinking a litre of milk.
What Is a Macchiato?An espresso with a spot of foam on it, and one of the smallest drinks on the menu. Not to be confused with the two larger things sold under the name.
What Is a Marocchino Coffee?Espresso, cocoa and milk foam in a small glass, from the north of Italy. Smaller and far less sweet than a mocha, and easy to make well at home.
What Is a Babyccino?Frothed milk in a small cup, dusted with cocoa, made for children who want to order something while the adults have coffee. No coffee in it at all.
Brewed coffee
Drip and filter coffee, and the drinks made by adding milk to a brewed cup rather than to espresso.
What Is a Café au Lait?Brewed coffee and hot milk in roughly equal parts. The thing that makes it distinct is the one most recipes get wrong: there is no espresso in it.- What Is a Caffe Misto?Brewed coffee topped with an equal amount of steamed milk. The chain-cafe name for a very old drink, and a lighter alternative to a latte.
What Is a Red Eye Coffee Drink?Drip coffee with a shot of espresso in it. The name comes from the flight you drink it on, and the family it belongs to goes darker from there.
Cold coffee
Cold brew, iced coffee and the shaken and chilled espresso drinks, and why they taste different.
Cold Brew vs Iced Coffee: Not the Same DrinkOne is brewed cold for half a day, the other is brewed hot and poured over ice. The difference is not temperature at the end, it is which compounds ever left the coffee.
Caffè Shakerato: Italy's Iced Coffee, Made in a Cocktail ShakerEspresso, ice and sugar shaken hard and strained into a cold glass. No milk, no syrup, and no ice in the finished drink.
Coffee and alcohol
Coffee cocktails and spiked coffees, and what each one actually contains.
Hard Coffee: The Alcoholic Coffee Drinks, SortedA canned category, a cocktail canon and a set of liqueurs all go by the same name. They are not interchangeable.
Carajillo vs Espresso MartiniBoth are coffee and alcohol in a glass, and both have become fashionable. One is a two-ingredient Spanish habit, the other a shaken London cocktail.
Flavours and add-ins
What people put in coffee besides milk, and what it does to the cup.
All 5 on flavours and add-ins →
How to Make Bulletproof Coffee, and What It Actually DoesCoffee, butter and MCT oil, blended. Simple to make, heavily marketed, and worth understanding before you replace breakfast with it.
Super Coffee: What Is Actually in ItCoffee with protein and MCT oil added and the sugar taken out. A real product category with a specific use, oversold as an upgrade to coffee.
Why Oat Milk Curdles in Coffee, and How to Stop ItIt is not spoilage. Two things make oat milk split in a hot cup, and both of them are under your control.
Christmas Coffee Drinks Worth MakingSix that work at home, without a syrup pump or a cafe's equipment, and the two that are better in theory than in a cup.
Can You Drink Coffee Creamer by Itself?You can, and nothing bad happens from a sip. But most creamers are built to be a spoonful in a cup, and drunk on their own they are mostly sugar, oil and flavouring.
More
Newer guides that have not been placed in a topic yet.
What Is Espresso?A short, concentrated coffee made by forcing hot water through a tight bed of finely ground coffee. The numbers that define it, what crema tells you, and the drinks built on it.
What Is a Cappuccino?Espresso, steamed milk and a thick layer of foam. The classic proportions, why the foam is the whole point, and how a cappuccino differs from everything around it.
What Is a Flat White?A double shot under thin, silky milk in a small cup. Stronger-tasting than a latte, smoother than a cappuccino, and fought over by two countries.
What Is a Latte?Espresso with a generous amount of steamed milk and a thin layer of foam. The mildest of the classic espresso drinks, and the one with the most variations.
What Is an Americano?Espresso lengthened with hot water. As strong as a mug of filter coffee, but it tastes of espresso, and the order you combine the two changes the cup.