What is Luckin's Flat White? The Differences Between Flat White and Latte: Characteristics, Taste, and Which is Better?

Whether it's a large global coffee chain or a small independent café, there's one captivating milk coffee that appears in coffee shops around the world - the Flat White. Although it's not displayed on FrontStreet Coffee's menu, many customers come specifically for this beverage. Since it's also a combination of milk and espresso, we often confuse it with other milk coffees. In this article, FrontStreet Coffee will provide a simple introduction to this beverage.

What is Flat White Coffee?

Flat White originated from New Zealand and Australia, where Australians call it "Flat White." Before the 1970s, coffee shops in Australia typically made black coffee using French presses, manual drip methods, and similar techniques. In the early 1970s, Italians brought espresso machines to Australia, officially launching a new wave of coffee culture.

Legend has it that Flat White was born when a barista accidentally made the milk foam too thin while preparing a hot milk coffee, but still served it. Unexpectedly, customers loved this coffee beverage with its thin foam. Later, people named it "Flat White" based on its liquid surface being level with the cup.

The original intention behind Flat White was to ensure that every sip would perfectly combine the foam with the coffee and milk beneath. Only when the foam is extremely delicate, relatively thin, and the milk coffee temperature is slightly lower can you taste foam with every sip and finish it quickly before the foam separates. Therefore, when making Flat White, you first need super delicate foam, secondly, the foam can't be too thick, with moderate milk temperature and small cup size.

How to Distinguish Flat White from Latte and Cappuccino?

In Italy, "Caffè Latte" refers to coffee made by adding milk to espresso extracted with a moka pot, where "Latte" simply means milk. Latte emphasizes achieving a balance between coffee and milk, allowing you to taste both the coffee flavor and the sweet, mellow taste of milk, with both complementing each other without masking their respective flavors. Cappuccino, on the other hand, is made with one espresso and thick milk foam, typically presenting a 1-2cm thick "hamburger-style" layer, requiring you to first take a large sip of foam before drinking the coffee liquid.

Flat White, however, uses milk to highlight the coffee's flavor, with coffee as the protagonist and milk merely as a supporting role. Therefore, Flat White has a more abundant and intense coffee flavor. Combined with the light and thin upper foam layer, every sip of concentrated coffee liquid carries a delicate foam layer, and the moderate temperature and smaller cup size allow it to be consumed quickly before the foam separates. New Zealand baristas serve Flat White in small cups, with the same amount of coffee but reduced milk quantity, increasing the coffee ratio and naturally making the coffee flavor more intense. This is why Flat White is also called "Small Latte."

As baristas' extraction techniques continue to advance, in order to better express the aroma of coffee beans in the cup, Melbourne coffee shops also replace the espresso base with double Ristretto, incorporating foam with thickness similar to latte in a 150ml capacity cup. Ristretto refers to extracting less liquid weight with the same amount of coffee grounds, essentially a smaller version of espresso, more concentrated in the early to middle stages of extraction, resulting in a more intense flavor and thus requiring higher quality coffee beans. This is also why we often see in coffee shops that despite having a smaller cup size than latte, the price is equally high.

How to Make a Delicious Flat White?

FrontStreet Coffee believes that the evolution of Flat White stems from everyone's pursuit of specialty coffee bean flavors and textures. Therefore, each coffee shop presents its own unique style based on the coffee beans it uses and its own understanding of Flat White.

FrontStreet Coffee uses its own house-roasted "Sunflower Warm Sunshine Blend," composed of 70% Honduras Sherry coffee and 30% Yirgacheffe Natural Red Cherry coffee. The sherry's whiskey, vanilla, and cream flavors, combined with the tropical fruits and fermented notes of Red Cherry, create a rich and smooth coffee taste in the cup.

For the coffee base, FrontStreet Coffee chooses double ristretto. 20 grams of coffee grounds extract 30 grams of coffee liquid, with an extraction time of 25-27 seconds. However, FrontStreet Coffee needs to remind that each coffee bean's extraction recipe will have slight differences. This extraction recipe is the extraction parameters adjusted by baristas before daily business, based on the Warm Sunshine Blend used by the store.

The extracted coffee liquid is poured into a pre-prepared cup with approximately 200ml capacity. Pour 150ml of milk into the milk pitcher for frothing. The milk frothing requires less air incorporation than latte coffee, with a thinner and more delicate foam layer. The temperature is best controlled between 55-60 degrees Celsius for better mouthfeel. Finally, pour the frothed milk evenly into the coffee liquid.

FrontStreet Coffee's Flat White has distinct whiskey aroma, vanilla chocolate, full-bodied fragrance, and smooth texture, allowing you to clearly experience the flavor characteristics of the coffee. The prepared Flat White presents a texture of whiskey-flavored chocolate hot milk, loved by many customers.

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Important Notice :

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FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

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