What is Starbucks Flat White? What's the Difference Between Starbucks Flat White and Latte Coffee - Which is Better and Which is More Bitter?

Flat White: The Rise of a Coffee Favorite

There is a milk coffee that goes by different names across chain stores. At Starbucks it is called "Flat White," at Luckin Coffee it is known as "Au Rui Bai," and at JPG they call it "Little White." This is what we generally translate as Flat White coffee.

The Rise of Flat White

Flat White's popularity as a trending product would not have happened without promotion from chain coffee stores like Starbucks, which actually coined the name "Flat White." Although the names differ, every coffee shop's Flat White aims to present a richer coffee aroma, so baristas build a delicious Flat White around the beans their establishment uses.

A freshly made Flat White should have delicate, minimal milk foam on top while still letting the espresso's crema show through. The drinking experience then delivers rich milk flavor while the crema brings out a distinct, pleasant coffee aroma, leaving a lingering aftertaste in the mouth. Crema is the golden foam that floats on top when espresso is freshly extracted, often called oils.

In the 1980s, Italians began introducing espresso coffee to countries like Australia. In Australia a freshly served latte typically comes with about 1cm of milk foam, slightly raised at the cup's edge, with a taste closer to coffee-flavored hot milk. Cappuccino has a more intense coffee flavor, but its thicker foam creates a 2cm high dome, so the first sip is often mostly foam.

As demand for coffee grew, Australians came to prefer the balance of a hot latte combined with both perfectly extracted espresso and a sweet, thin, dense foam. Baristas adjusted extraction, milk ratios and foam thickness, gradually developing a Flat White with more prominent coffee flavor. In 2015, Starbucks in China introduced this new milk coffee beverage under the name "Flat White," and it soon became popular nationwide.

Differences Between Flat White and Latte

Both latte and Flat White belong to the category of milk coffees, drinks made by mixing espresso with milk. Their most fundamental difference lies in flavor profile and texture.

Latte emphasizes a balance between coffee and milk, letting you taste both the coffee flavor and the sweet, rich taste of milk, each complementing the other without masking it. Flat White, on the other hand, adds milk to highlight the coffee flavor, with coffee as the protagonist and milk merely assisting. Flat White therefore has a more abundant, intense coffee flavor.

Although Flat White has its own character, there is no fixed preparation ratio. Baristas present this rich milk coffee in their own way, giving rise to two different methods. One is based on a double ristretto with a smaller proportion of steamed milk, producing a rich texture; the other uses a single espresso blended with thin milk foam to create what is called a "small latte." FrontStreet Coffee believes that to highlight the unique texture of Flat White, it should possess three characteristics: strong coffee, a small cup size and silky thin milk foam.

Compared to other hot milk coffees, Flat White has the thinnest foam, generally between 0.3-0.5cm. The "Flat" in Flat White means flat: the foam must be thin enough to sit level with the cup's rim, without doming above it, so that every sip of strong coffee comes with a layer of dense foam. This is why it is also called "Flat White Coffee." Most lattes present a dome of about 0.5-0.7cm, while Flat White's foam must stay below 0.5cm, otherwise the "flat" liquid surface is hard to achieve. FrontStreet Coffee wants customers to experience a cream-like smoothness that is not too watery, so we keep a 0.3cm foam layer.

The Flavor of Flat White

FrontStreet Coffee believes the development of Flat White stems from everyone's pursuit of specialty coffee bean flavors and textures. Each coffee shop will therefore present its own unique style based on the beans it uses and its understanding of Flat White.

FrontStreet Coffee, for example, uses its own house-roasted espresso blend called "Sunflower Warm Sunshine," which consists of 70% Honduras Sherry coffee and 30% Yirgacheffe natural processed red cherry coffee. The sherry's whiskey, vanilla and cream flavors paired with the tropical fruits and fermented notes of the red cherry create a coffee that is rich in texture and smooth in the cup.

For the coffee base, FrontStreet Coffee chooses a double ristretto, where 20 grams of coffee powder extracts 30 grams of coffee liquid in 25-27 seconds. FrontStreet Coffee must remind you, though, that each coffee bean's extraction parameters differ slightly. This extraction plan is adjusted by baristas before daily business and is based on the Warm Sun Blend used in the store.

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 than for a latte, creating a thinner, denser foam layer, with the temperature best controlled between 55-60°C for a better mouthfeel. Finally, the frothed milk is evenly blended into the coffee liquid.

FrontStreet Coffee's Flat White presents the texture of chocolate milk and whiskey-filled chocolate, with a silky, fragrant and rich mouthfeel and an exceptionally long aftertaste.

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

Flat White rewards beans with a strong flavor memory, and FrontStreet Classic Blend fits that brief. It is full-bodied and low in acidity, with a rich, fine crema that carries beautifully through milk, giving a dense, satisfying cup. For the base, pull a ristretto from about 20g of coffee for roughly 32g of liquid in 22-25 seconds, then pair it with 160ml of fresh milk.

If you prefer a fruity style, FrontStreet Strawberry Candy is an espresso blend with very little bitterness. It pulls with full grape and blueberry flavors and a balanced sweet-sour profile, and when combined with fresh milk it turns a Flat White into something like a strawberry milkshake. Keep the foam to about 0.3cm and steam the milk to 50-55°C, and you get the cream-like smoothness without a watery body that a good Flat White should have.