How to Order at Starbucks Without Awkwardness and What Coffee Beans Make the Best Flat White

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Understanding Flat White Coffee

Starbucks introduced a coffee called Flat White a long time ago, using ristretto espresso combined with steamed milk foam, offering a rich, sweet, and smooth texture. FrontStreet Coffee also offers Flat White coffee, but FrontStreet Coffee prefers to call this coffee bean Australian Flat White or simply Flat White.

What Makes Starbucks Flat White Unique?

So what makes Starbucks Flat White unique? Starbucks' Flat White is an authentic Australian Flat White, made with double Ristretto to create the Flat White. Flat White contains less milk foam than latte, and there's a small white dot in the center when pouring the milk.

How to Make Traditional and Authentic Australian Flat White?

So how do you make a traditional and authentic Australian Flat White? FrontStreet Coffee has just mentioned that Flat White tastes better when made with double Ristretto, but this is not the standard method for Australian Flat White. The components of Flat White and other espresso coffees are quite similar—espresso + hot milk + milk foam.

Using the same cup size as an example with "Cappuccino," "Latte," and "Flat White," the milk foam ratio is: Cappuccino > Latte > Flat White, while the milk ratio is: Flat White > Latte > Cappuccino.

As FrontStreet Coffee's comparison shows, you can easily see that Flat White is an espresso coffee with the most milk yet the least milk foam. Therefore, the milk content and milk foam content in Flat White have become key factors in making Flat White.

Key Factors in Flat White Preparation

Next, FrontStreet Coffee will explain these two determining factors in detail. High milk content directly dilutes the espresso. Simply put, the coffee flavor becomes lighter while the milk flavor becomes stronger. This naturally doesn't taste good—just like Starbucks coffee, if you don't add some special requests, every cup tastes like you're drinking water.

Then there's the milk foam content, which has always been the most controversial aspect of Flat White. Coffee is constantly evolving, just like how few people in Australia are willing to drink 1:1:1 cappuccinos anymore. Many Australian baristas have increased the milk foam content in Flat White for two reasons. First, because traditional Flat White has less milk foam, it lacks the rich texture that espresso should have in the mouth, only having fineness.

Second, latte art. The milk foam content in traditional Flat White is insufficient for latte art. Even if you force it to create latte art, it will be a very thin, imperfect pattern. If the Flat White in a customer's hand can perfectly create latte art, what's the difference between this Flat White and a latte?

The Importance of Espresso Selection

Most importantly, based on the components of Flat White, it has higher requirements for espresso. No matter what kind of coffee it is, if the coffee beans are not selected well, no matter how skilled the pour-over technique is, it's of no help.

So which espresso blend should be chosen to make Australian Flat White? Espresso blend coffee is also called mixed coffee. FrontStreet Coffee generally refers to coffee made by mixing two or more different varieties of coffee or the same variety of coffee beans with different roasting degrees. Of course, the espresso used to make Australian Flat White is by no means a simple addition, but rather through the blender's unique understanding of coffee flavors, making different coffee beans complement each other's strengths and weaknesses to create a perfectly flavored blended coffee bean.

FrontStreet Coffee's espresso blend coffee beans can be mainly divided into: balanced-flavored espresso, nutty chocolate flavor, and wine-aroma coffee beans. Everyone can make Australian Flat White based on which flavor of espresso they want as the base.

Because FrontStreet Coffee itself is a coffee shop focused on roasting fresh, good coffee, and the coffee beans in the shop are all roasted in-house, they can also blend according to their own requirements when making espresso blends.

For example, if FrontStreet Coffee wants to make Australian Flat White with a hint of wine aroma, FrontStreet Coffee would choose their own roasted Sunflower Warm Sunshine blend coffee beans. This coffee bean uses Honduras Sherry coffee beans paired with Yirgacheffe Natural Red Cherry coffee beans. The resulting Australian Flat White will have distinct fruit acidity and rich whiskey wine aroma.

If you want to make Australian Flat White with rich nutty and chocolate flavors, FrontStreet Coffee would recommend FrontStreet Coffee's roasted specialty blend coffee beans, using Colombian coffee beans paired with Brazilian coffee beans in a 3:7 ratio. The unique nutty and chocolate flavors of Colombian coffee combined with Brazil's rich peanut and creamy coffee flavors create an espresso blend that feels very balanced overall, with rich crema, extremely smooth mouthfeel, fresh fragrance yet slightly bitter with American characteristics.

Differences Between Espresso and Pour-over Beans

I wonder if everyone has noticed that the beans used to make Australian Flat White are somewhat different from pour-over coffee beans. Generally, pour-over coffee beans are single-origin beans, though there are also blends, such as FrontStreet Coffee's Panama Flower Butterfly, which uses Geisha coffee beans paired with Catuai Catimor coffee beans. FrontStreet Coffee's pour-over coffee beans are generally roasted lighter than espresso beans.

However, when making Australian Flat White, lightly roasted coffee beans are generally not used because espresso extracted from lightly roasted beans using an Italian coffee machine will be very acidic. When paired with frothed milk foam, your Australian Flat White will only have a sour taste. To avoid this phenomenon, espresso beans are generally roasted darker.

If you go to Starbucks to order Australian Flat White, you can also ask the staff about the roasting degree of the coffee beans used—they're generally dark roasted. Conversely, if you use very darkly roasted beans for pour-over, the brewed coffee flavor will only have a bitter taste, and you basically can't taste the regional flavors.

Conclusion

Therefore, if you want to make a good cup of coffee, you must put more effort into the coffee beans. A good coffee bean paired with the correct brewing method—whether making Australian Flat White or pour-over coffee—FrontStreet Coffee believes this cup of coffee generally won't be bad.

For more specialty coffee beans, please add FrontStreet Coffee on private WeChat, WeChat ID: kaixinguoguo0925

Important Notice :

前街咖啡 FrontStreet Coffee has moved to new addredd:

FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473