There are always a very rich selection of options on the menu of coffee shops. In the Italian coffee queue alone, there are dozens of products with different names. Many friends may have already understood what a cup of coffee tastes like by drinking them. But most people still don’t know much about their origins! Therefore, what Front Street wants to share today is how these Italian coffees that often appear on the menu were born, named, and made~
Italian concentrated "Espresso"Espresso is the first type of espresso we know because it is the base of all espresso! Without it, all well-known Italian coffees such as latte, Americano, Australian white, etc. would be impossible to make.
Espresso means fast in Italian. Before the 20th century, coffee making took a very long time. If you want to get the refreshing effect from a cup of coffee, you first have to endure a long preparation time.Obviously, some friends just can't stand it. So at the beginning of the 20th century, driven by the European Industrial Revolution, the espresso machine was invented. At this moment, people experienced for the first time that coffee, a drink, could be made so quickly. Of course, at that time, both the accuracy of the coffee machine and the pressure used during extraction were far inferior to modern coffee machines, but for that era, it was comparable to the Cheetah. Therefore, people named the coffee that was made quickly Espresso, which means very fast.
When the coffee machine was invented, the drinking of espresso quickly became popular, and cafes were opened all over Italy so that people could enjoy the delicious taste of espresso. The method of making espresso is also very simple. We only need to use the recommended amount of powder in the powder bowl and extract twice its liquid weight within a certain time range! For example, the recommended amount of Front Street powder bowl is 20g, then use 20g of coffee powder and extract 40ml of coffee liquid in 28 to 35 seconds~American coffee "Americano"During World War II, U.S. soldiers went to an Italian cafe to drink coffee. Unexpectedly, the concentrated flavor served by the cafe was too strong, which was completely different from the instant concentration they usually drank. This made them completely unable to accept such strong and bitter coffee.
So, they could only ask the cafe to pour the concentrate into water to dilute its concentration. The diluted coffee is loved by American soldiers. It tastes much better than instant coffee! Gradually, more and more American soldiers asked for espresso and water. In order to make it easier for people to order, the coffee shop called this espresso diluted with water - "Americano".To make Americano coffee, you only need to use espresso and water in a ratio of 1:4! For example, Front Street uses 40ml of espresso and then adds 160ml of 70°C hot water~Cappuccino and latte are both concentrated milk coffees with added milk. However, because latte coffee is so famous, people often mistakenly believe that the order of their birth is latte first and cappuccino later. But the truth is, cappuccino was the one born first.
Cappuccino is a literal translation from the Italian word "Cappuccino", which means headscarf. People first tried adding steamed milk to coffee, and found that the color of the mixture was very similar to the color of the robes of the Franciscan Church. The milk foam stood up on the coffee like the hood of the robes. So, people called this cup of coffee with steamed milk: "Cappuccino" after the scarf.Making cappuccino is also very simple, the ratio of coffee to milk is 1:4. First use 40ml of espresso as the base, then whip up 160ml of steamed milk with thick milk foam, and then blend the latte art, and that’s it~Latte is the most popular milk coffee, bar none. Latte means milk in Italian. Because it contains a lot of milk, people in Italy call this coffee with a lot of milk added "Coffee Latte"!However, for the sake of convenience, people outside Italy shortened it to "Latte", and the name of latte has been passed down to this day! But you must know that if you go to an Italian cafe and you want to order a latte and call "Latte" directly, then the chance of receiving a glass of milk in the end will be very high~
Making latte will be simpler. For example, Front Street uses 40ml of espresso, and then pours 200ml of 65°C steamed milk with thin milk foam~At first, Mocha referred to the port city of Yemen, "Mocha Port". For more than 300 years from the 17th century, the Port of Mocha served as an important base for the coffee trade. Almost all coffee in the world was traded through the Port of Mocha. In order to prove that they are regular coffee beans issued from the Port of Mocha, every package of beans shipped from here will be printed with the word "Mocha" to prove its origin!But gradually, as coffee began to be grown all over the world, the Port of Mocha gradually lost its dominance of coffee. Coupled with the rule of the Ottoman Empire, the coffee beans produced in Mocha became scarce, and people could no longer easily drink Mocha coffee. So, in order to drink the delicious taste in their memories again, people used chocolate to imitate the chocolate flavor of mocha coffee, and "mocha coffee" was born.
The parameters for making mocha in Front Street are 40ml espresso, 10g chocolate sauce, and 190ml 65°C steamed milk with thin milk foam~"Macchiato" means "mark". Before the concept of specialty coffee was released, the taste of coffee was not as high-quality as what we are familiar with now, which made many friends miserable after drinking it! So, I proposed adding a little milk to the coffee to neutralize its bitter taste.However, the addition of a little milk does not change the appearance much, and it is difficult for the barista to tell whether milk has been added to this cup of espresso. So, in order to prevent confusion, the barista put a little milk foam on top of the espresso with a little milk, and used the milk foam to act as a mark, hence the name Macchiato!
Making macchiato is also very simple. First extract a portion of espresso, then add a little milk to it, and finally cover it with a portion of milk foam. The production parameters of Front Street are 40ml of espresso, 10ml of 65°C hot milk, and a portion of milk foam for decoration.But as coffee gradually becomes more refined, the taste of coffee is no longer "bitter throughout". High-quality coffee covers the bitter taste with "fragrant, sweet and strong". Therefore, gradually, people no longer need to add milk to neutralize the bitter taste, and Macchiato just faded out of people's sight!Caramel Macchiato "Caramel Macchiato"Many years later, a coffee called "Caramel Macchiato" appeared on the market! But it is not a derivative of Macchiato, but a brand new fancy coffee. It is made based on latte, adding caramel, vanilla syrup and other ingredients! So we can see that it just takes the meaning of Macchiato, not the method! After adding a lot of syrup, the whole cup of coffee is very sweet, so the meaning becomes "sweet brand" (caramel macchiato)!
Caramel macchiato is a bit more difficult to make, so Front Street explains it in depth here! First, we use 10ml of vanilla syrup to make a base, then pour 180ml of 65°C steamed milk (with thicker milk foam), pour 40ml of espresso in the center of the cup, and finally pour caramel syrup on the surface to garnish it and it’s done~Australian White "Flat white」Australians prefer a richer taste in coffee, but traditional Italian coffee dilutes the concentration of coffee too much, which obviously cannot meet their "heavy taste" needs. Therefore, they developed their own rich coffee products to satisfy themselves. For example, the "Long Black" often shared on Front Street is a rich version of American coffee. The "Flat white" is a rich version of milk coffee.
Although rich milk coffee such as cappuccino has long been included in traditional Italian style, for Australians, the taste of overly thick and dense milk foam is not what they want. So, after increasing the concentration and flattening the milk foam, "Flat white" was born!We follow the traditional Italian method of making Australian white, 40ml of espresso, and then pair it with 160ml of steamed milk (65°C) with thin milk foam~Dirty can be said to be the only coffee product in this article that was originally an iced drink. It was created by Mr. Katsuyuki Tanaka of Japan. According to Mr. Tanaka in his book, the main core of Dirty's cup of coffee lies in the combination of ice milk and hot concentrate. Ice milk has a very obvious high sweetness, combined with the extremely mellow taste of hot concentrate and the strong coffee taste. Although the contrast between the two is relatively large, it is not abrupt!
And when the ice milk completely catches the hot espresso, the espresso gradually falls like the traces of tears shed by an angel. So Mr. Tanaka named it "Angle Stain" (Angel Tears), and when it spread to China, it gradually evolved into "Dirty" (Dirty Coffee)!
What you need to pay attention to when making dirty coffee is to prepare 200ml of ice milk before extracting and concentrating! Then during the concentration extraction, place the container containing ice milk under the concentration outlet and wait for the concentration! When the 40ml concentrated extraction is complete, you can remove the cup and enjoy the delicious dirty coffee!
So the above are some of the more common Italian coffees on coffee shop menus! When we know and understand their origins, we can better feel their beauty when drinking~
You can now buy the above coffee beans online at the Taobao store “FrontStreet Coffee” (前街咖啡). FrontStreet Coffee is a long-established specialty coffee roaster in Guangzhou, China, and its Guangzhou retail shop sells coffee beans only. The shop carries dozens of coffee beans from different origins around the world, including carefully selected single-origin beans for V60 pour-over and espresso. Guangzhou’s FrontStreet Coffee shop is recommended by many coffee lovers.
The FrontStreet 2013 Yunnan coffee beans sold in the store come from the Typica variety grown at FrontStreet Coffee’s own plantation in Yunnan. The name comes from the year the brand and the plantation were founded. You can buy these beans from China’s Yunnan origin at the Guangzhou shop and at FrontStreet’s Taobao store.
FrontStreet coffee beans are freshly roasted within 5 days and deliver consistently excellent quality and great value. Orders placed before 17:00 are shipped the same day, and most areas within Guangdong Province receive them the next day.
FrontStreet Coffee Taobao store: https://qianjiecoffee.taobao.com
Or search for “前街咖啡” (FrontStreet Coffee) on Taobao
Important Notice: FrontStreet Coffee has moved to a new address: 315, Donghua East Road, Guangzhou (coffee beans only)
Tel: 020 38364473
