How To Make A Flat White
Buying a coffee in New York City poses an interesting cultural dilemma for a Brit who has just moved to stateside after a year and a half living in Australia: how to order a flat white.
Before moving to the antipodes I was a coward when it came to caffeine, opting for the chocolatey halfway house of a mocha instead of full-strength coffee, which tasted impossibly bitter in my mind.
The flat white changed my life. Or, more precisely, slightly altered my morning routine. It is both creamy and intensely caffeinated. It is still the only coffee I really drink.
But the expression on most New York barista’s faces when I ask for one here is a mixture of confusion and mild annoyance. Some make the effort and give it a go, others point-blank refuse. A small handful have the flat white on the menu and only one coffee shop – owned by an Australian – has been able to make it right.
To make a flat white, milk is free poured over the espresso, completely intertwining the two liquids. The key to a proper flat white is microfoam—milk steamed using a steaming wand to create frothed milk with bubbles so tiny they are barely discernible. Correctly pouring and steaming microfoam is essential to blending a flat white correctly.
All this might change now as Starbucks, the world’s largest coffee shop chain, announced it will start serving flat whites around the US from Tuesday.
So just before the flat white becomes a fixture on coffee shop menus around the country, here are a few things you should know:
What is a flat white?
In the words of Australian actor Hugh Jackman, who owns a coffee shop in New York and personally trained staff to make the beverage, the flat white is “like a latte with a little less milk and more espresso”. But it’s actually a little more complicated (and pretentious) than that.
The drink consists of a double shot of espresso combined with micro-foamed milk that should be heated consistently all the way through so as not to split into bubbled froth and scalding liquid. As such the flat white is often served a little colder than a cappuccino. The milk is freely poured in with the espresso meaning the velvety texture of the drink remains consistent throughout, unlike a latte.
Finally the flat white should be served in a 165ml tulip cup, making it typically far smaller than both a latte and a cappuccino.
How will Starbucks make theirs?
Starbucks issued the Guardian with a particularly lavish description of how baristas have been trained to make their flat whites. It seemed to largely coincide with accepted practice and will, in the words of the release result in “a bold coffee flavor with a sweeter finish”.
Starbucks have said their flat whites will be offered in all current sizes - an indication that the traditional 165ml rule may have been overlooked.
Where did the flat white originate?
This is a particularly controversial question and exposes centuries-old culinary rivalries between antipodean neighbours Australia and New Zealand who both claim ownership of the drink.
Some say the name “flat white” was coined in the early 1980s in Sydney, Australia. But there are also arguments to suggest the drink was actually being made earlier in another Australian city, Melbourne, in the 1970s.
New Zealanders, however, argue the drink was developed into its modern form in the coffee shops of the nation’s capital, Wellington, in the later 1980s.
The safest answer is to say both countries helped forge the flat white’s identity and according to Australian food historian Michael Symons, Wellington-produced flat whites remain the best in the world.
The flat white — an espresso-based beverage prepared with steamed milk — has for a long time been as ubiquitous as sourdough bread and vintage cocktails on the cosmopolitan streets of London and Melbourne.
In wider Europe, Australia, and New Zealand, it has been providing a more refined and delicate option for many others who want to enjoy coffee that has got a milky hit, without the excess that comes in a cappuccino or latte.
It is a winning method.
Now, the flat white is infiltrating the US market. It started catching on in New York City this year, served at coffee houses like Culture Espresso on 38th Street and Little Collins in Midtown, according to the New York Post. Previously, the coffee concoction proved hard to find in North America.
In the UK, the drink went mainstream in 2010, when Starbucks added it to the menu. Others followed, however, and the chain was soon outflanked by rival coffee shop Costa — doing wonders, says the Guardian, for the company's sales given the drink's popularity with coffee 'aficionados.'
How To Make A Flat White Coffee
For many, however, the flat white remains a specialist drink — a choice for the hipsters of independent cafes and pop-up bars manned by gurus of the caffeinated game.
There are plenty who order it, but do not really know what it is exactly. And be warned, because it's not simply a cafe latte with slightly less milk, which to many is a statement that amounts to blasphemy; a mistake too readily made.
Artisan coffee shop and training school's Alessandro Bonuzzi agrees: 'I still find that the consumer doesn't quite understand the distinction between a latte and flat white.'
Business Insider UK spoke to two more experts to clarify the process.
'The key is the milk steaming stage,' explains Scott Bentley, who runs Caffeine Magazine. 'The milk needs to be steamed to increase the volume by about 25% — this must be done in a specific way to not split the milk and so the milk is a similar texture throughout, like that of paint.
'The old style cappuccino you'd get from a chain cafe would overheat the milk and split it into very airy foam and hot milk at the bottom.
The secret, says Bentley, is 'microfoam' — the small, fine, velvety bubbles extracted from coffee pitchers by only knowledgeable hands. It uses free-poured milk so the foam is folded through the whole drink. There's no distinct layer between coffee and foam.
Bentley continues: 'The microfoam needed for a flat white is produced by introducing the steam so it swirls the milk in the pitcher and getting the milk hot but not scalding, which is why people sometimes complain that speciality coffee is never hot enough.
How To Make A Flat White Latte
'This temperature is also important as it's when the sugars begin to be released making the milk sweeter — again a reason why you shouldn't need sugar in your quality coffee as the coffee isn't bitter and the milk is sweeter.'
London's St Clements Cafe has seen flat white sales soar. The cafe's Olivia Grant says it's as much about 'ratio' as method. Also essential is a 160 milliliter cup, she says.
She explains: 'The milk should be textured but not too foamy, hot but not too hot. It's for true coffee lovers. If poured properly the milk will be put in centrally so the coffee sits at the rim.
'Lately, sales of flat whites here have almost exceeded cafe latte sales.'
With its roots in New Zealand and Australia (there's an argument about which nation truly invented it), a rosetta or fern is often put on a flat white to illustrate the Kiwi flag.