Coffee Drinks Illustrated

Great illustrations. I’d love to use them. What can we agree to?

Nice job!!! I love this site design as well! Very Clean.

Is the Macchiato diagram really half full/empty, or is a label missing?

The Macchiato diagram is correct. The definition of a Macchiato is a shot of espresso with a mark of foam.

The diagrams are cool, however, this is depressing. Please stop ruining coffee!
I challenge you to come to Portugal and have a coffee, just ask for a coffee at any café and be amazed.

THAT’s what coffee is. This is just a load of male cow discharge. :-)

Great diagram. How about filling in the empty 6th slot with the most obvious of all… Espresso!

Your cappuccino diagram isn’t quite right. There’s not that much milk. The actual recipe has the cup slightly more than half full of foam, rather than a third like you illustrated.

Great diagrams. I’m not too much into the fufu flavored caffe, but you missed a very luscious standard, the caffe breve, which is like the caffe latte only with half and half replacing the milk.

Hey! Great site!

These diagrams should be handed out to everyone who ever contemplated going into a coffee shop, so that they can make an informed choice!

Just a quick note. Jordan, Cappuccino is SUPPOSED to have espresso, milk, and foam in equal amounts. (I used to work for Caffe Nero)

Anyway, keep up the good work =D

It took me a few hours to understand the difference between a Latte and a Capuccino last tuesday… and you put it very simple with those diagrams. Thanks a lot

I’m pretty sure that a Macchiato is a shot of espresso poured through foam. Not topped with it. Or at least that is what I was taught.

First off, very good diagrams. As a barista it is heartening to see people actually showing the right things. To completely clarify the confusion, a macchiatto translates to “marked” and it is literally a shot of coffee (often double, I personally have it ristretto) with a little bit of foam on the top, spooned in. Usually about 2 or three spoons worth.

A cappuccino is by definition a drink of thirds. One third coffee, one third steamed milk and one third microfoam (not those massive bubbles, but incredibly small bubbles that taste and feel awesome)

Nice pictures.
I think a flat white is also quite common and could be added to the list.
Shot of espresso and steamed milk, no foam.

Thank God! i wish this was shown not only to people buying coffee but to people making coffee! i cannot remember the last time i had a proper latte in England. it is crazy.
I am printing this and taking it with me everytime i order a coffee in this uneducated country!!!

Once again thank you

Dude! This rocks! I am a huge coffee buff and love these illustrations! I am going to blog about this and will use your wonderful illustrations as well…of course, will cross post! :) Please update with some of the other pictures as well…Frappucino’s perhaps? :)

Great designing skills!

-Mithun Dhar

I agree with Lisa. I drink flat white. But I have no idea what proportions make it different from latte or cappuccino. It often has a dollop of foam.

Lokesh, Good illustrations. Should be on display at every coffee place in North America–for the edification fo both the customer and the barristas.

Hey Pedro!
Please come to North America and open a Portuguese coffee shop! There is a large Portuguese population here in the Toronto area so you probably wouldn’t starve while waiting for the others to find you!

mithun- if you are truly such a coffee buff, you would know that only one major coffee chain makes frappuccinos and that it isn’t a universal drink. if you came into my coffee shop and asked for a frappuccino, i wouldn’t make you one because i don’t have the recipe and it isn’t on my menu.

otherwise, this is a great diagram. more coffee shops should have them. it’s sad that so many people order a drink and complain they didn’t want as much foam in their cappuccino.

Hi,

great diagrams!

I’ve lived in italy for most of my life and I would like to add some Italian info, so tourists know what to expect when they order their coffee!

- Espresso macchiato in Italy can be caldo o freddo: what you illustrated in thediagram is macchiato caldo; macchiato freddo is just an espresso with cold milk.

- If you order a CAFFE’ LATTE, Italians often don’t really know exactly what to do, and they just give you a “cappuccino senza schiuma”, (cappuccino with no foam) which is what you call a flat white. if you want it different, try to explain your wishes to the barman.

- I’d like to add LATTE MACCHIATO, a glass of steamed milk and foam, with one drop (literally no more than one sip) of coffee. it looks just like a glass of foam with a brown spot in the middle, the size of a dime.

American coffee is not big in italy. If you ask for a CAFFE’ AMERICANO, all you usually get is a very long espresso in a tea cup, and it’s got nothing to do with the large mugs of coffee you get in American diners. It’s thinner, yet the taste is stronger and more bitter, and it’s half the quantity of what you would get in the US

This is all over Italy, But there is one city where the names of coffee are all mixed up, and nobody really knows why! The city is Trieste, in the north east, near the border with slovenia.
Follow these instructions if you want to have a flawless coffee-tour of Trieste.
If you want an espresso, just say UN CAFFE’
If you want a caffè macchiato, say CAPPUCCINO
If you you want a cappuccino, say CAFFE LATTE
if you want a caffe latte, well, you’re going to have to be very clear on how you want your coffee cause they don’t really have a word for what we call caffè latte.

I beg to differ on the cappuccino. The classic is in thirds: espresso, steamed milk, milk foam. No spooning the foam! That’s the resort of charlatans. Measured and drawn well the milk will pour naturally into its respective components the steamed milk pouring in first and the microfoam last. Personally, I like my cappuccino’s classically made like this in either single shot or double shot measures. The edge of the foam should be tinged with espresso crema, so you’re not slurping through milk foam to get to flavor. We roast our coffee so it’s very fresh and provides a wonderful golden and sturdy crema. If the espresso doesn’t do this, the espresso beans are not fresh.

These illustrations are generally correct though do not translate well to American servings of 12, 16 and 20 ounce cups. A cappuccino in a 12-ounce cup would be half full. Come on by and we’ll gladly translate from mermaid burblings to real espresso language and flavor.

Try a Cuban espresso. As we were taught, we press raw brown sugar into the espresso as we tamp it into the portafilter. Coffee is so popular worldwide and it’s regional variations make it even more interesting.

Pedro, we love to learn: What makes Portugese coffee different? How is it prepared differently from, say, American drip methods?

Jack: ack ack ack! Sugar in the grouphead sounds like a disaster in the making to me.

For the author:

-I’ve always heard “breve” pronounced “breh-veh” or “breh-vey,” depending on American accents. Never before “breev.”

-Americano, in artesan shops, will pull espresso as a float on water; to me, americano has water on the bottom and espresso on top.

-Please don’t add latte macchiato to the list. I don’t think it warrants the attention. I’ve never heard of one ordered, anywhere.

Although I side with Senhor Pedro (our espresso bars are really milk bars here), espresso in Portugal isn’t all that different from the espresso you can get in the finer espresso spots in the States:
http://theshot.coffeeratings.com/2006/11/espresso-in-portugal/

The cappuccino and other milky drinks are more an homage to the tourists. And while they do drink café com leite (coffee with milk) in the mornings, they’re more likely to drink straight shots of espresso — typically loaded with sugar.

I would love to see these illustrations as a poster or a print somewhere. ^_^ I just love the way they look!

love the diagram! can i buy it in very high resolution? email me.

Nice diagrams, though there are a couple of favorites missing:

Ristretto - an espresso, that is stronger than a normal espresso http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ristretto

Café con hielo (ice) - One espresso served with a whiskey glass containing ice. When the sugar has dissolved in the espresso, it is poured into the other glass. Very, very nice on a hot summer day.

Another suggestion: Maybe incorporate the preferred cup size as part of the diagrams? (espresso is served in a very small cup, Cappuccino in a very big one)

Great diagrams. Very useful. Thanks Lokesh!

The ‘flat white’ should be called ‘cafe con leche’ the standard spanish coffee.
You get a big cup with some espresso in it placed in front of you and then the steamed milk is poured on top. You can decide how much milk you want, great.

Excellent illustrations! Seriously, never knew the difference between Cappuccino and a Latte! But ordered them since they tasted quite like Indian coffee. You didn’t mention Cafe au lait… or is that the same as latte?

Posted this at http://www.charchaa.com/most_common_coffee_drinks_illustrated

An Espresso con Panna has the the whipped cream on the bottom, then the shot is poured over it. That way the shot doesn’t ‘die’ before you can drink it.

You should add more types of coffee and make a poster with dimensions: 594mm height and 210mm width! I would buy that!

Your phonetic attempts at Italian are truly woeful.

The 3×3 diagram is great. It would make an awesome graphic for T-shirts (and coffee mugs).

Seriously consider Cafe Press or the like to produce it for you.

Thanks for the great illustrations.
I understand the differences now.

Working at an small independent coffee shop in the US, I find nothing more annoying that constantly having to point to our tiny coffee cups and ask whether they want the single shot or double shot one, rather than insult their stupidity when they ask for a “Carmel Macchiato” when what they want is a “Carmel Latte.”

I believe the flat white originated in Australia (although it may be similar to cafe con leche).

The difference between a capp and a flat white isn’t simply the foam. The milk is steamed at a much higher temperature in a cappucino, causing the milk protein to stretch causing, as the foam separates, the milk to become watery. The steamed milk in a flat white warms while retaining its creaminess.

The cup can be filled to the top with steamed milk (or not), and there will often be a dollop of creamy (not foamy) foam.

Hey, you added one more drink to my list with this illustrations. Good job!

Great diagram. It has proved my suspicion all along. Having different names for each combination of milk, water and coffee? Nothing but an illusion of choice for the customers.

I have suggestions for more descriptive names for these variation of coffee (Of course this will be considered blasphemy by the “experienced” coffee drinkers who took the time to memorize these names)

Espresso -> Coffee

Cafe Latte & Cappuccino-> Foamy coffee and milk
(I will bet that most people can’t tell the difference between these two blind folded, and it wouldn’t even matter as different shops have different ratio in their recipes)

Americano -> Watered down Coffee

Even better, why don’t just sell Coffee, and then ask, what kind of toppings do you want on it? Nobody would have to memorize anything, and your 5$/hour “baristas” wouldn’t screw up your order. Oh yeah, i forgot, the shops probably wouldn’t be able to charge obscene prices on the coffee without the snobbery

This is a wonderful design that really conveys what these drinks are. I love the muted colors for the ingredients, and the relative preservation of ratios, they all make for easy comparison. My only critique (given with the most constructive of intentions) is that my eyes keep getting distracted by the contrast of the black saucers and whites between, you may consider using a gray or ditching the saucer part all together.

A mocha is only made with chocolate syrup in crap cafes. A decent cafe will use cocoa or powdered chocolate.

What a bizarre collection of comments.We’ve got everything from “you are what you consume, so put it on a T-shirt” to “my wife ran off with a Starbucks barista, and I’m angry”.

Caff - eh, not caff - ay.

Where did all the trolls come from and why would they decide mistaking spanish for italian or that the website is broken in Opera is, at all, relevant to the entry? (which is, in the end, coffee drinks the author is familiar with illustrated in a beautiful manner).

Everyone knows there are different ways to drink coffee all over the world. None of them are inherently better than the rest and it’s great that there’s variety. It’s sad to see so many comments try to dismiss one style for their own and it’s heartening to see some people actually contributing to the styles of the world.

It would be hard to list all the different styles of drinking coffee all over the world, especially when so many are shared and change just in name. As has been mentioned even within the same country coffee names are not standard.

I’d like to see a version of this in a poster format, with other variants added (maybe country variants) or other kinds of drink/food that can be had in several ways.

For those complaining: These are the proportions used by the baristas in the US and in Starbucks, they are not universal and definitively not shared by your countries. They are no better than your own local variations, as yours aren’t inherently better than this. Take them for what they are and, if anything, contribute to the knowledge by sharing what YOU know, instead of slamming what someone else shared.

Hmm. My comment came out as anonymous. Strange. What point is there to calling out the trolls if they can’t flame back? :)

That is a complete eye opener… an amazing way to illustrate!!!

Hope you get the «cortado» in there. An espresso with a dash of milk. Let no one fool you, there’s just the dash nothing more. I get this from widespread experience with the cortado in Spain where the variant comes from.

I’m just really surprised by how many people commenting didn’t know these already. I thought it was common knowledge!

What the bloody hell is wrong with just having a black coffee? This is what the “Friends” generation has done.

in this funny cartoon (at the end..) you can see the difference
between italian coffee and european coffe

http://www.infonegocio.com/xeron/bruno/italy.html

ciao
francesco

I thought ‘cappuccino’ is italian for ‘liitle mountain’, but i can’t see any milk foam mountain on these pictures…

Cappuccino doesn’t mean little mountain in Italian, Italian for little mountain is “collina”, like the soccer referee

could you combine all of these pics into one? would be easier to save and print :)

great! I link it on my Italian blog…
useful for Italian people abroad searching a good coffee…useful to learn how to ask and what :-)

Make mine a Flat White, thank you :)

Cappuccino is so named because its colour resembles the robes of the Capuchin monks. Same with the capuchin monkeys.

By the way - in Australia and New Zealand, cappuccinos are always dusted with cocoa or powdered chocolate.

Also: in Australia or NZ you’d want to call an espresso a “short black” when ordering, as ALL coffees down here are made with espresso as the base (you won’t see percolators in cafes or restaurants), and a plain espresso can be either long or short…

There’s a “long black”, which is a short black (espresso) diluted with hot water to fill one of those little 90ml cups. Some cafes even have half-sized paper cups for take-away. This is the default “black coffee” down under.

A short black will usually come in a small cup (90ml, or 3 fl. oz), half full. Strong and (if made well) naturally sweet. They’re designed to intimidate the weak and inspire the strong. Or vice versa. That’s versatility!

really nice illustration..now i’m more clear about the differences..thank you!

This is great!! Having just returned from Australia, this makes it easy to order a flat white in the U.S. Love the graphic!

Great Graphic… You should add Caffe Lungo: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lungo

and Caffe Corretto: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caff%C3%A8_corretto

and Caffe Cortado: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lungo

and a Red Eye: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_eye_%28drink%29

Afagato- Espresso over vanilla ice cream.

It doesn’t get any better than that!

i love it, i need a cheat sheet for my wallet.

Coffee tools.

The “Flat White” is also known as a “Caffe Misto”.

Brazillian coffee has a premium blend. Black Coffee is my favorite.

Henna
http://www.prankvideoz.com

there’s no differents between the cups?

Great illustrations.
Dugg!

A PDF would be nice!

that is very cool. would make great wallpaper or kitchen wall tile pattern.

Awesome. Get this printd on something

drinks tray/place mats/ cups and I will buy.

Thanks! I always wondered what a Espresso Macchiato was!! Now I know :-)

i love it,
drink coffe in outer space? www.beinspace.com

talk about snobbery - HUH
the only people who really have problems with ordering a drink are those posers afraid of being shown up for what they are.
Any coffee shop worth going to will gladly take the time to make sure you get the right drink. the owners and the staff love the product and should be glad to share their love and knowledge.

as a side comment do you have the same problem ordering at TacoBell? there are only a few components there too. (meat, cheese lettuce and tomatoes) or are they snobs too?

fantastic…
more are welcome….

The image is creative commons or no?

please license of cc….

Thats cool, creative. coffee lovers gonna adore it.

Good imagery for a primer, although there are variations of everything.

Regarding: Klang: (espresso is served in a very small cup, Cappuccino in a very big one)

While you certainly could serve cappuccinos in a a very big cup, the WBC (World Barista Championship) standard is a 5.5oz cup containing 1oz espresso, and roughly 2oz milk and 2 oz milkfoam.

In practice, “third wave” shops in the US often pour a “wet” cappuccino (freepoured microfoam generally with a miniscus, in monkshead or other pattern which allows a halo of coffee around the milk) using two 0.75 oz ristretto-style shots, 3oz milk and 1oz microfoam for the design. No spoons are used and the foam is tight, but not stiff.

In other words, there really aren’t any rules anymore. Just ask for specifically what you want.

I like your post, very informative and great illustrations, but I must say:
Are you out of your mind?

Your Macchiato shows something like a mini cappuccino. To make a macchiato you put a teaspoon or two of milk, no more. It’s not a 1:1 relationship of ezpreso to milk, NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Also, there’s macchiato caldo, e macchiato freddo.
In macchiato caldo steam milk is used, in macchiato freddo cold milk is used.

Mamma mia!

A poster or printer friendly version would be awesome!

I often used t ask for a Double-shot Flat White, and get told “why don’t you just order a Latte” - but seems most places don’t make a Latter as a default Double-shot brew.

Anyone want to comment on the correct level of ’shots’ per coffee styles?

If you stick to the “thirds” way of making cappuccinos, customers complain they are getting ripped off. I for one don’t want 1/3rd of FOAM! FOAM is mostly AIR!!

Great infographics! You should seriously get the put on a T-Shirt and start selling it on your site. I am sure there are plenty of people that would by that.

Steve

And even since my last comment, still even more T-shirt and angry Starbucks cuckold comments…

i hate coffee

Is the cup half full, or half empty?

Arby,
Foam is what provides texture to the drink. If done right the bubbles will be VERY, VERY small and should be strong enough to hold up sugar when dropped on it. The foam that we are talking about in a proper cup of cappuccino is very close to the same consistency as whipped cream.

arby,
order a latte then.

Cafe Latte & Cappuccino-> Foamy coffee and milk
(I will bet that most people can’t tell the difference between these two blind folded, and it wouldn’t even matter as different shops have different ratio in their recipes)

i’ll take that bet in a heartbeat, and i bet half the other commenters here would, too, so stfu

Thanks for the great pics big help for work! What about the long black? Is there a bit of hot water in the bottom or not?

Great illustrations. It really helps fill in the blanks!

A note on the breve pronunciation. In English breve is “breev”, but in the world of coffee, one pronounces the final e just as in latte, so “brev-ay” would be the better caption for that drink.

And where is the Café Ristretto¿¿????…. which is almost half of a Espresso = 25ml…..!!!!???

In Australia, what you call the Americano would usually just be called a “black coffee” or sometimes, a “long black”. The plain espresso is sometimes called a “short black”, thought that is going out of fashion these days. A “flat white” may be what you’ve described, or it might be the Americano with a dash of cold milk added.

I asked for a cafe latte in Italy once. The barista asked “cappuccino?” I said “no, latte”. I was given a cup of steamed milk. (Milk translates as latte).

Great job. Just a little note. [kap-oo-chee-noh] is not so correct. The right pronouncation is [kapp-oo-cchee-noh]. Single or double consonants make big differences in Italian words. The same is for most of the other words in your diagram: [e-spres-oh] => [e-spress-oh] and so on.

Bye!

nice illustration! i’ll keep this one!
thanks

lay off the coffee guys

Hmmm… bloody great idea!

However, I’m not seeing one of my personal favourites for summer - Affogado! One rich expresso shot brewed over a scoop of ice-cream or vanilla gelato and served in a glass.

Mmm - how many vices can you get in a single glass?

Just pure expresso for me.

Wouldn’t “Espresso Drinks Illustrated” be a more accurate title?

Great infographic thou, love it.

i know exactly what to ask for next time and it won’t be confusing anymore…..

I dislike the taste of coffee, so this whole page is useless to me. In fact, I’m wondering why my wife sent me the link!

Coffee isn’t coffee unless you roast your own. Anything else is stale catpiss.

If I had to think that much about the type of coffee I drink, I wouldn’t need to drink it.

I love your chart!

How about adding a Cafe au lait?

Very cool idea. I might put together something similar in PDF so burgeoning baristas can print it for reference!

Carly: That’d be a “latte”, most of the time.

I love this thing. If a poster could be made it would be awesome (although it may mean repeating some of the existing ones, maybe with the different names in different countries).

Funnily in Spain an “americano” can be either a very long black coffee (really watery, as in Mexico and, probably, the U.S.) or an espresso-and-a-half (small cup, strong black).

In Venezuela “Coffee-with-water” (an “Americano” in the chart) is called a “Guayoyo” (no idea why, no obvious ethymology there) and is drunk in the middle of summer (the heat helps you feel less hot).

In Madrid, Spain, it’s very comon to have the aforementioned “Café con hielo” (Coffee with ice) in summer, a long black and a glass of ice cubes where the coffee is poured. This and the custom of having “café con leche” (coffee with milk, literally, like the latte or “au lait”) in a big glass instead of a mug is seen as strange in the rest of Spain.

In Veracruz, México, coffee is made bizarrely strong (to the point of being actually syrupy) and poured in huge glasses (half a liter or so). Only a small shot is poured and then near-boiling milk is poured to top it off. The ratio is almost 20 to 1 and the end result is usually dark brown anyway. This is also the custom in some very old, traditional coffee houses (”Bisquets de Obregon” in Mexico City, for example) and, funnily, in the “Chinese Coffee houses” (Cafés de Chinos), also in Mexico.

I could go on, you know. I *really* like coffee. :)

The cappucino and the latte appear exactly the same to me. Am I missing something?

And to the person who commented that a “good” cafe makes mochas with powdered coacoa…no. No they don’t. A good mocha is prepared with actual melted chocolate and can be a bit rare to find. Chocolate syrup is the next best thing as it dissolves easily. Powdered anything leaves a layer of undissolved silt on the bottom of the cup and most people prefer gritless coffee.

-Cappuccino are one third of each espresso, steamed milk and foam, but I find here in Australia customers don’t like too much froth because they see it as less value in their dollar.
-Where I work we make macchiatos with espresso, 2 spoons of steamed milk and 2 spoons of foam.
-Our mochas don’t have whipped cream but instead foam, like a cafe latte.
-We also do vanilla cafe lattes and flavoured cafe lattes.
-Caramel cafe lattes are with vanilla and caramel also with caramel drizzled on top.
-The americano we call long blacks and espressos we sometimes call short black. -People like to abbreviated cafe latte to latte, but correctly latte is milk. Cafe latte is coffee and milk (and foam).
-So don’t be too surprised if, in another country, you get milk when you only say latte.

You MUST copy right these graphics and print and sell them any way you can think of they a truely fantastic. A wonderful help to those of us who are to scared to try something new for fear of what we will get. Everyone needs a credit card version for their pocket book or wallet. Tees and posters are a must for the true coffee lover.

and please people; stop complaining!!! geez……

Excellent, very nicely done. You might consider adding a short and long espresso to the series. Espresso corto or ristretto, espresso and espresso longo. There is a common misconception that a double espresso is the same as a long espresso, but a long espresso just has more water as an espresso, but not as much as an americano. A double espresso is two espressos.

Macchiato means stained. You “stain” the black coffee with white milk. A macchia is a stain and a smacchia is a stain remover.

Most orders in Italy are simple. Caffe’ (espresso), Ristretto (short espresso), Lungo (a longer espresso), Caffe’ macchiato (caldo or fresco), Cappuccino, and Caffe Latte.

However, the very best of all is Caffe’ correto or coffee ‘corrected’ with your favorite shot of liquor.

It is all getting a little exagerrated outside of la bella Italia. We can only hope that soccor/football will not move in the same direction.

This is awesome. I want a wallet-card sized version to hand out at coffee shops to help people know what they’re ordering. I can hardly contain my urge to hit people when I hear the word “expresso”…argh! Yes, I’m a Pacific Northwest Coffee Snob, and proud of it!

I find two different types of cappucino to be the most common. One is the one illustrated in the diagram above, the other is a latte with a sprinkling of cocoa dust.

if there was ever a natural for “Cafe Press” t-shirts and such, this has gotta be it.

How about a print friendly version? When I try to print I don’t get a 3×3 printed on one page but two pages with all the diagrams vertically lined up. I very much want to print a copy , laminate and take it with me:-)

I love this. And I’d buy it on a shirt for my husband if you decide to make one available.

Gryndyl: Yes, the best mocha’s use melted chocolate, but syrup is worse than powdered chocolate. If you prepare the powdered chocolate correctly, there is no grittiness; while most syrups available these days become bitter when added to a hot liquid. I usually have chocolate ganache on hand… just melt and add.

A suggestion to quell the international coffee connoisseurs: create a “Coffees of the World” diagram chart with different examples of the various coffee beverages around the world.

The only problem with this is getting a majority to agree on what is what.

Excellent post.

Good effort, but all the diagrams are all incorrect. Everyone knows that coffee and espresso drinks have four steam lines, not three. Get it right, smart guy!

Eminently useful. Thanks :)

just thought i’d share :) i worked in a bar/restaurant in england when i was a student there, and i was always proud of the coffee we did. everything was made with a combination of espresso shots, milk, and mini chocolate curls (roughly the size of choc chips). this is our menu, besides the basic espresso, in order of how much of an arse it is to make on a busy day.

americano = espresso shot + hot water

macchiato = espresso shot + small dollop of microfoam (looks t3h bomb)

latte = espresso shot + steamed milk nearly to the top + layer of microfoam

cappuccino = espresso shot + steamed milk to just over the halfway mark + lashings of piled up microfoam + sprinkling of mini chocolate curls

mocha = espresso shot + hot chocolate (made with cold milk mixed with mini chocolate curls, then steamed) + thick layer of microfoam + sprinkling of mini chocolate curls (pwned)

would love to try what was suggested in one of the earlier comments, ie tamping brown sugar in with the grounds. i miss making coffee some days.

i live in singapore now, and the native coffee is a rather different beast. as someone mentioned earlier about “chinese coffee shops”, liquid coffee in its rawest form here is synapse-fryingly thick, like concentrated syrup of coffee essence. it’s brewed in tall metal cans and if you drink it unadulterated you might go into immediate cardiac arrest. no one’s ever tried. and a small quantity of this is the base of each coffee drink, replacing the espresso shot, as it were.

i’d sketch out a guide to ordering coffee in singapore (a real local coffee shop, not the shiny starbucks on the corner), but i think i’ve gone on too long already.

unless someone’s interested of course ;)

Nice graphic! A great example where pictures are so much easier than words.

I think most people in the US order flat white as “latte, no foam”.

And the vowel in “panna” should be represented as “pahn”, not “pawn”, so those that distinguish the two vowels don’t use the wrong one. It’s not the vowel in “Dawn” but the one in “Don”.

It’s too bad that adding cafe au lait would mess up the rows and the espresso theme, because besides the cappuccino/latte distinction, that was the most common error people made in ordering coffee when I worked in a cafe.

There’s another: espresso allonger (sometimes seen as allongé). It’s french for “drawn out”. The way it’s made is to run the water through the coffee longer (as opposed to the Américano, where the water is added later, thus diluting the precious, precious espresso far too much). It’s quite popular in Montréal.

I guess its diagram would have the espresso nearly filling the cup, albeit with a lighter shade of orange (or, perhaps with wavy blue stripes).

Great illustrations.. wondering where the ever popular South Indian “Filter Coffee” will fall in this list - Maybe Flat White or Cafe Latte?!!

Wonderful!

Any chance of you licensing this under a CC license?

Nice infographics!

I would love to see your take on Starbuck’s “venti cappuccino with cream”. But you would need a much larger cup - or bucket for comparision. It is the single most horrible espresso based drink I have ever come across, and possibly the furthest away you can get from true Italian coffee culture.

Where’s the monte bianco??

a shot of espresso in a clear glass espresso cup, with as much foam as can fit into the glass spooned on top.

Just a suggestion - find a linguist friend to translate your attempts at phonetic spellings into IPA.

Alexis - Don and Dawn are exactly the same vowel for me. Dialects differ signifigantly.

Americanos really should all be doubles. With the second shot any talk of “watered down” goes right out the window… the barista is pulling two shots at a time anyway. In fact, why not make everything a double?

I’d like to print this out high-res for our kitchen.

Is there a way to get the images in Vector-format? (svg or ’such as’)

And: Will you release them altogether in one big collection (on one sheet, as a pdf for example) ?

thanks.

a hah ah ah ah a ha
“Caffè Latte” is note a “trademark” but only coffee=caffè + milk=latte. If you ask in Italy a “Latte”, they give you a simple cup of milk…
Also a big error is only one size of cup: espresso need a little one, cappuccino a bigger one, and a “flat white”(i think “latte macchiato”) surely a glass made of glass tall and tight. The mug don’t exist in Italy bar (sure for tea or at home).
I like the illustration, but i’ll never use the instructions to made something about coffee!!

americans shouldn’t make italian coffe-related things up.

“caffé macchiato” has not “milk foam” but a dab of milk. you can have it “macchiato caldo” (hot milk) or “macchiato freddo” (cold/just not hot milk).

cappuccino is not made of “steamed milk” and “milk foam” like two separate ingredients. you steam the milk, it makes some foam.

and there are no country to country variants. there’s a right way and a wrong way. you might like the wrong way better but that doesn’t make it suddenly “correct”.

Hey There…Very nice. I can NEVER remember what the heck is in some of these. I always end up ordering “coffee”.

I posted a link from my site. www.formenover40.com

Thanks.

Where’s the most important one: the double espresso!
And isn’t Café Lungo not the official name for Americano, or is that a in-between?

great .

one espresso’s americano pls

Marco: You come off a little arrogant, don’t you think? One would assume Italy invented coffee.

Different countries have different variants and, even though the names were “borrowed” from the italian variants you should be mature enough to understand they stopped being direct and literal references to them.

It’s been made clear there are different ways of doing it and Italy being the most famous doesn’t mean it’s the only or best, just the one with the best marketing.

I lived in Mexico and I don’t make a fuss when someone in the U.S. talks about their version of “Tacos”.

Learn to be tolerant. The world assumes you’re an arrogant lamer otherwise. You have a preference but you don’t own the absolute truth. Your preference is, by definition, subjective.

I agree with Marco,
because out of Italy (or without a real coffe machine, all made in Italy) it’s veeeeeeeeeery difficult to find out a nice caffè or cappuccino etc.

I’m talking about the style, not the people who make coffe.

We own the absolut truth about it!!

Ciaaao!

As others have mentioned, it would be great if you could add cortado. I’ve tried in vain for years to order it in the U.S. I explain it in detail, I insist on “NO FOAM”, but despite the barrista/cook/waiter/cashier claiming to understand exactly what I want, they always end up serving me a Cappuccino or Macchiato.

The correct wikipedia link for Cortado is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cortado

I’d argue that the cafe mocha does not always have whipped cream on top. That may be the case in a lot of shops, but I’ve always been asked if I preferred whipped cream, not if I’d like to remove it.

Very cool too by the way.

You know, it is just strong coffee plus milk to take the edge off. I’m surprised at the number of people that order something ‘wet (if the above description is correct) when it is going to be put in a paper cup with a sippy lid. Con Panna sounds interesting though.

But mostly, it is mostly people justifying their caffiene addiction, and paying a premium for their self satisfied illusion of being a snob. Wet Half Caf low fat with Splenda? Gee, just set up a vending machine.

Make mine Vietnamese iced coffee. Pour some sweetened condensed milk (Eagle Brand or something like that, 3/4″ or so to taste) in a tall glass, fill the glass with ice, SLOWLY (so the glass doesn’t break!) add good strong French-pressed coffee and more ice to replace what’s melting, and stir well. It’s dessert all by itself.

Oh, and before you ask: This is NOT made with that weird civet-cat-$#!+ stuff!

BTW, it’s “cah-FEH.” “Caff-eh” is the Canadian spelling :-)

Back to my half-caf Maxwell House Colombian with Coffee-Mate. OK, I blaspheme. So sue me………….

I agree about the caffelatte thing.
It consists in coffee plus a large amount of hot milk, it’s not so popular in italian bars but it is quite popular when having breakfast at home, especially for children.
Italy didn’t invent coffee but was responsible of its spread in Europe and subsuquently in the Americas (not considering the improvements on its preparation processes).
So it’s not a matter of absolut truth. For example, if i’d want to know something about tacos, i’ll go straight to a mexican, since he probably know how an “original” taco is.
Anyway it’s a quite fascinating matter, since it meets food with culture and anthropology.

Those are simple but brilliantly so. I really like them. Maybe some people will realize they’re hardly even drinking coffee. (95% coffee and a splash of skim milk for me, please) Nice designs Lokesh.

Love the diagrams. Very helpful. But,

> Espresso is prepared by forcing hot water through finely ground
> dark-roast coffee beans.

Steam, live steam, not hot water. That’s why espresso machines operate under pressure and give that nice hissssssing sound.

If you put hot water through coffee grounds you get good ol’ American coffee.

nice!

what about cappuccino?

This is awesome.

Nice post. Kudos.

Hi
in Venezuela, we have another one we call it “tetero”. it´s made with some drops of espreso and the rest, milk. “Tetero” means “feeding bottle”.
bye

Major D :

“Steam, live steam, not hot water.”

Nope. Most espresso machines produces steam for milk frothing, but water is pushed through the coffee grounds at around 90degC.

very cool, lokesh… nice work…

interestingly, I think Starbucks (or maybe Peets) back a few years ago offered a brochure in the stores with sketchy diagrams with lots of gridlines and architectural-style flourishes…

anyone else remember such a thing?

Not to complicate things further (bet you never thought a simple espresso drink primer could get so much attention), but perhaps a future post on methods of making coffee? Percolated, boiled, forced (like espresso); Italian vs. Turkish, etc.
Someone else mentioned that all styles are valid, and I agree. I have had good percolated coffee and crappy espresso - depends on how it is made, quality and freshness of coffee, proper grind, good water, Boyle’s Law, sun spots, etc. Okay, maybe we can already find those details on Wikipedia.
BTW - can I get the permission of Starbucks Corporation to punch any barista who says “expresso.”
Matt
P.S. Lightbox rules! Thanks. (http://www.ctrockgym.com/news.html)