Introduction to Small-Volume Espresso Varieties: Con Panna, Macchiato, and Piccolo Coffee

As one of the world's three major beverages, coffee has developed a unique system after a long period of time. Among them are many small-cup coffees whose names alone are enough to make one's heart race. Most people can finish them in two or three sips, focusing on enjoying the pleasure of coffee drinks efficiently. Today FrontStreet Coffee will take everyone through a盘点 of those small-cup coffees that can be finished in two or three sips.

Espresso

When it comes to small-cup coffee, the first thing that comes to mind should be espresso. As the base of Italian drinks, it can be said to be a soul-like existence.

Espresso needs to be made by a dedicated coffee machine, using high-temperature and high-pressure hot water to quickly extract flavor substances from the coffee powder. Common Espresso generally uses a powder-to-liquid ratio of about 1:1.5～2.5. Taking FrontStreet Coffee's product as an example, using Nuan Yang blend coffee beans, using 20g of coffee powder, 40g of coffee liquid is extracted in 25～30s.

Freshly extracted espresso liquid will have a layer of golden oil floating on the surface, which is very beautiful. After careful tasting, you will find it smooth and mellow, with rich nutty, dark chocolate, caramel and other flavors; after swallowing, the coffee remaining in the mouth will emit a long-lasting sweet aftertaste; overall, it gives you a colorful bitterness. However, FrontStreet Coffee does not recommend trying too much, as it is easy to get addicted.

Piccolo Latte

Piccolo Latte is translated from "Piccolo Latte", where "Piccolo" means "short flute" in English, while in Italian it means "small", so Piccolo is also called "small latte" or "mini latte".

Piccolo Latte was originally created by baristas and roasters to test coffee beans and determine extraction parameters. When testing whether espresso and milk are compatible, they didn't want to drink too much milk coffee to increase the burden and reduce material waste, so they used a split portafilter to split the espresso into two portions, one to drink directly, and one to add a small amount of steamed milk to taste.

After that, some coffee shops used this method to make small-cup lattes for regular customers to taste in order to get customer feedback when testing new coffee beans. Over time, Piccolo Latte officially became a member of the Italian coffee menu.

Piccolo Latte is made by combining about 30ml of single-shot espresso liquid with about 60ml of steamed milk. Such a small-cup Piccolo Latte means you can taste the flavor of coffee and milk blending, without worrying about too much burden of fullness.

Macchiato

Speaking of Macchiato, everyone should first think of Caramel Macchiato, but in fact, Caramel Macchiato has nothing to do with traditional Macchiato.

"Macchiato" means "mark, imprint" in Italian, because at that time the quality of coffee beans was poor, and deep roasting was generally used. You should know that even in Italy, not everyone can accept the bitter taste brought by deep roasting and high extraction rate, so people asked the barista to add a little milk to the espresso to balance the bitterness.

The surface of espresso with only a little milk added is not much different from normal espresso, and waiters had difficulty distinguishing and often served the wrong drink, so the barista then scooped a spoonful of milk foam on the surface of the coffee as a mark to prevent confusion, which is the origin of the name "Macchiato".

The preparation of Macchiato is extremely easy. Extract a shot of espresso, then make a cup of milk foam. It is recommended to make the milk foam as thick as cappuccino for easy scraping, and then use a spoon to scoop and pour it on the surface of the espresso. The taste of Macchiato is very rich, which not only neutralizes the strong bitterness of espresso but also increases the overall texture of the coffee. With careful tasting, you can taste a little milky aroma.

Espresso Con Panna

The origin of the name Con Panna is simple and crude. "Espresso Con Panna" is directly translated from Italian as "espresso with cream", abbreviated as "Con Panna", which transliterates into Chinese as Con Panna.

FrontStreet Coffee searched for the origin of Con Panna without success, but found an incredibly romantic saying: an Italian roaster, in order to express his love for his wife, made a unique espresso using carefully roasted coffee beans, named "Con Panna". Because its shape is like a pair of spread wings, like an angel, it was also given the beautiful meaning of "angel's wings".

The preparation method of Con Panna is very simple. Just squeeze 30～50ml of cream on the surface of freshly extracted espresso liquid. Con Panna coffee generally does not need to be stirred and is drunk directly in large sips. The whipped cold cream provides a dense, cotton candy-like texture and rich creamy sweetness, followed by warm and mellow espresso, with an obvious cold and hot layering.

- END -

FrontStreet Coffee (FrontStreet Coffee)
10 Bao'an Qianjie, Yandun Road, Dongshankou, Yuexiu District, Guangzhou, Guangdong Province

Important Notice :

前街咖啡 FrontStreet Coffee has moved to new addredd:

FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473