What is Flat White Coffee and How to Make It - The Origin Story and Meaning Behind Starbucks Flat White Name

In recent years, thanks to the spread of coffee culture, various styles of coffee shops have been opening everywhere, and the speed at which café menus are updated is astonishing. Building on traditional Americanos, lattes, mochas, and cappuccinos, many "niche" beverages have been added, such as Flat White, Dirty, Piccolo, Long Black... Among these, Flat White, with Starbucks' promotion, officially entered the "popular coffee list" and became known to the public under the name "Fu Rui Bai."

The Mysterious Origins of Flat White Coffee

On September 29, 2015, Starbucks China launched a new product, Flat White, at their first Coffee Culture Festival, giving it the Chinese name "Fu Rui Bai." "White" is a literal translation from White, also representing the white dot presented during latte art. "Fu Rui" is phonetically similar to Flat White and also represents rich and fragrant flavor in meaning. Subsequently, other chain brands also launched their own versions of "Fu Rui Bai" - COSTA called it: "Chun Yi Bai," Luckin Coffee called it: "Ao Rui Bai," and others called it: "Xiao Bai Coffee," "Ao Bai Coffee," "Ping Bai Coffee"... Although it has multiple "stage names," they all refer to the same coffee beverage from Australia - Flat White.

Regarding the origin of Flat White, both Australians and New Zealanders insist it originated from their respective countries - this is a debate that has yet to determine a winner. In the early 1970s, Italians brought espresso machines to Australia, officially launching a new wave of coffee culture. Compared to traditional lattes, Australians sought milk beverages with thinner foam and stronger coffee flavor. Starting from the 1980s, Flat White could be found on the regular menus of many places in Australia, and soon spread to cafés in European and American countries.

According to Australian standards, a latte should be served in a thick, wide-mouthed ceramic cup, with foam thickness of at least 1cm to be considered qualified. Some even have foam an inch thick. The thick, fine milk foam creates the soft, delicate layers of a latte, allowing drinkers to experience the coffee's aroma while also enjoying large mouthfuls of milk foam. As for Flat White, the foam must be under 5mm, smooth and fine, with high coffee-foam integration to be considered qualified. The thin foam带给品尝者的, unlike the "softness" of a latte, is a silky "smoothness."

How to Make a Qualified Flat White?

To make a qualified Flat White coffee, we first need to distinguish it from other hot milk coffees (latte, cappuccino).

In terms of foam thickness, cappuccino > latte > Flat White. Cappuccino has the thickest foam, generally presenting a "hamburger-shaped" foam of 1-2cm height, requiring large mouthfuls of foam before drinking the coffee liquid. Latte thickness is between 0.5-1cm, emphasizing a soft, balanced mouthfeel. Flat White has the thinnest foam, generally 0.3-0.5cm. The foam must be thin enough to be level with the cup rim, not allowing the foam layer to bulge, ensuring that every sip of concentrated coffee liquid comes with a dense foam layer.

New Zealand baristas felt that to make the coffee richer, they should adjust the coffee-to-milk ratio. They therefore used smaller coffee cups (about 150ml) than lattes and uniformly used double espresso as the base. This reduced the milk quantity while increasing the coffee proportion, naturally making the coffee flavor more intense.

Meanwhile, Melbourne baristas would replace the base with double ristretto espresso, incorporating foam with thickness similar to a latte in a 150ml capacity cup. Ristretto refers to extracting less liquid weight with the same amount of coffee grounds - essentially a concentrated version of espresso, focusing more on the early and middle stages of extraction, resulting in richer flavor and thus requiring higher quality coffee beans.

FrontStreet Coffee's espresso offerings use their house-roasted "Sunflower Warm Sun Blend," which combines 70% Honduras Sherry coffee with 30% Yirgacheffe Natural Red Cherry coffee. The sherry's whiskey, vanilla, and cream flavors pair with the red cherry's tropical fruit and fermented notes, creating a rich yet smooth cup of coffee. FrontStreet Coffee maintains the characteristics of small cup size, thin foam, and double ristretto espresso as the base for their Flat White.

Since most espresso-based drinks in the store use Espresso as the base, FrontStreet Coffee's baristas use standard extracted Espresso as reference before business hours. Each coffee bean's extraction recipe will have slight variations. This extraction recipe consists of extraction parameters adjusted by baristas before business hours daily, based on the store's Warm Sun Blend. FrontStreet Coffee's Espresso extraction recipe: 20g of coffee grounds extracted to 40g of coffee liquid, taking 28-30 seconds. For ristretto, without changing grind size or coffee amount, 20g of coffee grounds is used to extract 27g of coffee liquid, taking 20-25 seconds. This results in more intense berry acidity, wine aroma, and caramel flavors.

The extracted coffee liquid is poured into a pre-prepared cup of about 200ml capacity. 150ml of milk is poured into a milk pitcher for frothing. The milk frothing requires less air incorporation than a latte, creating thinner, denser foam layers. The temperature should ideally be controlled between 55-60 degrees Celsius for better drinkability. Finally, the frothed milk is evenly integrated into the coffee liquid - latte art is optional.

FrontStreet Coffee's Flat White presents aromas of vanilla, cream, chocolate milk, and whiskey-filled chocolates, along with berry sweet and sour notes. The entry is smooth, fragrant, and rich, with a very persistent aftertaste.

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Important Notice :

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FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473