Caffe latte

Method

Warm the cup and empty it. A 240 ml cup takes real heat out of the drink, and the milk cannot be steamed hotter to make up for it.

Pull a double espresso straight into the cup, 18 g in to 36 g out, in 25–30 seconds.

30s

Purge the wand, sit the tip just under the surface and give the milk one second of air. That is all a latte needs.

Drop the tip deeper and spin the milk to around 60 °C. The whole job from here is folding, not aerating.

25s

Tap the jug once and swirl until the surface is glossy and moves like wet paint.

10s

Pour from height to break through the crema, then drop the spout close to the surface and finish the pattern. Serve at once.

The same two ingredients, stretched

A latte is espresso and steamed milk, which is exactly what a cappuccino is and exactly what a flat white is. Nothing is added and nothing is taken away. What changes is the ratio: a double shot goes under roughly 200 ml of milk instead of 120, and the foam is a thin lid rather than a third of the cup. That is the entire difference, and it is worth saying plainly, because the menu makes four drinks look like four recipes when they are one recipe with three dials.

Because the ratio is long, the milk carries more of the flavour than it does in any other espresso drink on this site. Cold, fresh whole milk, steamed once and poured straight away, is not a detail here. Milk that has been sitting in a jug for a minute has already begun to separate, and in a 240 ml cup there is nowhere for that to hide.

Milk poured from a pitcher into a cup, the pattern opening up — The pour starts high to sink the milk under the crema, then drops close to the surface so the pattern sits on top rather than through it.Photo by Anna Tarazevich on Pexels

One second of air, then texture

The steaming technique is the cappuccino technique with the aeration window cut to almost nothing. Sit the tip just below the surface, let it tear for about a second, then drop the jug so the tip goes deeper and the milk starts to spin. Everything after that second is folding: you are not making more foam, you are distributing the little you made through 200 ml of milk until it pours like paint.

Stop at around 60 °C, or when the jug becomes uncomfortable to hold. Milk taken past 65 °C picks up a cooked, faintly sweet note, and in a drink this long that note is most of what you taste. A latte tempts people to overheat the milk, because a big cup cools faster and the instinct is to compensate. Warm the cup instead.

Why the espresso disappears, and what to do

Pull a standard 18 g to 36 g double into 200 ml of milk and you have made a drink at roughly one part coffee to six parts milk. That is a legitimate latte, and it is also the point at which many people decide their machine is weak. It is not the machine. It is arithmetic.

There are two honest fixes and one bad one. Pull a triple, around 27 g in to 54 g out, which keeps the extraction where you like it and simply brings more coffee. Or shorten the shot: 20 g in, stopped at 30 g, is a 1:1.5 ratio that concentrates the sweet early part of the extraction and leaves the thin tail in the basket. The bad fix is grinding finer and pushing the same shot longer, which mostly adds bitterness that the milk then has to cover.

If you want the coffee in front without touching the shot at all, you have already got the answer: pour less milk. At 110 ml you have made a flat white.

Questions about this recipe

What is the difference between a latte and a cappuccino?

The same two ingredients in a longer ratio. A cappuccino is 120 ml of milk in a 150–180 ml cup with three to four seconds of air, so the foam is a third of the drink. A latte is 200 ml of milk in a 220–240 ml cup with one second of air, so it is mostly liquid milk with a thin lid.

Should I use a bigger shot in a big cup?

Yes, once you go past about 200 ml of milk. A single double shot under 200 ml of milk is roughly a 1:6 drink. Pull a triple, or stop a 20 g dose at 30 g for a stronger 1:1.5 shot, and the coffee comes back without the drink getting bitter.

Why is there no latte art on my latte?

Usually too much air rather than a bad pour. Take one second of air while the milk is still cold, then spin it until there are no visible bubbles. Milk with a stiff head sits in the jug instead of flowing, and it lands as a white blob however carefully you move the spout.