The Relationship Between Flat White and Latte: Which to Choose for Weight Loss

Beyond the latte and the cappuccino, another milk coffee has been gaining ground in cafés worldwide: the Flat White. It goes by many translated names in China, and it was Starbucks adding it to the menu in 2015 that made the drink familiar to Chinese customers.

The Hometown of Flat White is Australia

If you want a milk coffee in Italy, you order a latte; in Australia, a barista will make you a Flat White. That is simply what milk coffee is called there. In the 1980s, Italian immigrants brought espresso machines to New Zealand, Australia and Melbourne. At the time the standard specialty drinks were lattes and cappuccinos, but Australians wanted a stronger coffee flavour with lighter foam, and so the Flat White was born. It soon appeared on fixed menus in Europe and America and became a standard offering in cafés.

When the foam on a milk coffee flattens out into a thin layer sitting level with the rim of the cup, the drink earns the name Flat White. "Flat" describes that level surface, and "white" refers to coffee made white with milk. A Flat White makes the coffee the protagonist and the milk the supporting act, so the coffee flavour is fuller and more intense. The thin top foam also means that every sip of strong coffee comes with a velvety, dense layer of microfoam. The moderate temperature and the smaller cup let you drink it quickly, before the layers separate.

New Zealand baristas serve Flat White in smaller cups: the same amount of coffee with less milk raises the coffee's share of the drink, which naturally intensifies the flavour. In Australia, baristas work on the principle that a Flat White simply needs thinner foam than a latte. They use cups of the same capacity as a latte and focus on holding a thin foam layer of 0.3-0.5cm. Melbourne baristas go further, building the base on a double-shot ristretto — using only the front and middle portions of the shot — and combining it with latte-thickness foam in a 150ml cup.

Delicious Flat White Means Higher Quality Coffee

In the past, most coffee shops served dark-roasted Italian blends in pursuit of a rich, balanced, caramelised taste. Paired with hot milk, those blends hit a balance in which you taste both the coffee and the sweet, mellow milk, each complementing the other rather than masking it.

With the arrival of the specialty coffee era, drinkers began to seek out single-origin coffees with more distinctive flavours, and increasingly applied single-origin beans to espresso extraction — the SOE, or single origin espresso, that we hear so much about. Compared with a large latte or a thick-foamed cappuccino, a Flat White demands not only high-quality beans and a proper extraction but also finely textured thin foam, which makes it a better vehicle for expressing a bean's regional character. FrontStreet Coffee reads the growing popularity of the Flat White as evidence that drinkers are pursuing higher coffee quality.

Rather than dwelling on how a Flat White differs from other drinks, FrontStreet Coffee believes the point is to present it according to the character of the beans in hand and one's own understanding of the drink. FrontStreet uses its own roasted Italian blend, "Sunflower Warm Sunshine Blend," which combines 70% Honduras Sherry coffee with 30% Yirgacheffe Natural Red Cherry. The whisky, vanilla and cream notes of the Sherry meet the tropical fruit and fermented notes of the Red Cherry, producing a rich aroma and a smooth cup.

For the base, FrontStreet Coffee uses a double ristretto: 20 grams of coffee powder extracted to 30 grams of liquid in 22-24 seconds. That said, the extraction plan for each bean differs slightly. This plan is adjusted daily by baristas before service and is based on the Warm Sunshine Blend used in the shop.

The extracted liquid goes into a prepared cup, and 150ml of milk goes into a milk pitcher for frothing. The milk needs less air than a latte, producing a thinner, denser foam layer, and the temperature is best held between 55-60°C for flavour. Finally the frothed milk is poured into the coffee. Latte art is optional — because the thin foam does not raise the liquid level flush with the rim, the surface simply looks flat.

FrontStreet Coffee's Flat White shows vanilla, chocolate milk, whisky-filled chocolate and the sweet-tartness of berries, with a smooth, mellow, rich mouthfeel and a very long aftertaste.

Can Flat White Be Made Iced?

Lattes can usually be ordered hot or iced, but a Flat White is served hot only. Baristas want drinkers to experience the ideal marriage of foam and the milk coffee underneath: only when the foam is dense, relatively thin and at a comfortable drinking temperature does each sip carry both foam and rich coffee liquid, so the drink can be finished before the layers separate. Adding ice dilutes the cooled milk coffee to some degree and breaks that effect.

If you want an iced version of a rich milk coffee, FrontStreet Coffee suggests trying a Dirty, which has become popular in recent years: espresso is dripped over chilled fresh milk for a "dirty" look, and the alternating hot and cold texture is quite distinctive.

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

A good Flat White starts with beans that hold their own against milk. FrontStreet Classic Blend is the first choice: it was designed specifically for espresso and moka pot, and its outstanding strength is crema. Even a beginner using a non-professional home machine can pull a dense, fine crema, which is what good lattes, cappuccinos and Dirties depend on. Built on the traditional Mamba-style recipe, it is full-bodied and mellow, easy for newcomers and veterans to accept alike, and works equally well at home or in a café.

If you would rather have fruit-forward aromatics than maximum crema, FrontStreet Strawberry Candy Espresso Blend is the one to pick. It is a popular fruit-flavoured espresso blend that lets the natural character of Arabica beans from different origins combine into a vivid strawberry-chewy sweetness. It is very low in bitterness and pulls with full grape and blueberry flavours, sweet and tart in good proportion; with fresh milk, a Flat White made from it drinks like a strawberry milkshake.

For the recipe itself, FrontStreet uses its FrontStreet Premium Blend, which brings aromas of cream, hazelnut and white chocolate. To emphasise the coffee flavour, extract only the front and middle portion of the shot as a ristretto — 20g of coffee powder to 32 grams of liquid in 22-25 seconds — and pair it with 160ml of fresh milk. Foam should be smooth, fine and thin; for a Flat White the steam wand's air intake time must stay short, or the drink slides toward a latte and you lose the coffee oils on the first sip. FrontStreet holds the foam thickness at 0.3cm, which normally means admitting air for only 1-2 seconds before sinking the wand into the milk and building a vortex until the temperature reaches 50-55°C. Chilled fresh milk is the best partner; frothed, it underscores the milk's aroma and sweetness, and the result is creamy and refined without ever feeling heavy.