# The Types of Coffee Drinks Explained

> Latte, cappuccino, flat white, cortado, macchiato and the rest — separated by the one thing that actually differs: the ratio of milk to espresso.

Topic: Espresso  
Published: 2026-08-30T09:10:00-04:00  
Updated: 2026-08-30T09:10:00-04:00  
Author: Mical Robert, Editor (https://trysix.online/author/mical-robert)  
Canonical: https://trysix.online/types-of-coffee-drinks

## The short answer

Almost every café coffee is espresso plus a measured amount of milk. A cortado is one shot with equal steamed milk, a flat white two shots with 120 ml, a latte a shot or two with 200 ml plus. Only the milk changes.

## Key takeaways

- Order the drinks by milk volume and you can predict what any of them tastes like.
- Cappuccino and latte differ in foam, not in coffee. Both start from the same shots.
- A flat white is not a small latte — it has more coffee relative to milk and thinner foam.
- Milk adds volume and no caffeine, so a bigger milky drink is not a stronger one.

A café menu looks like a list of twelve unrelated drinks you are expected to already understand. It is really one drink with different amounts of milk. Once you can see the pattern, you can predict what anything on the board will taste like and order exactly what you want.

## One axis explains the whole menu

Café menus look like a list of unrelated drinks. They are not. With a handful of exceptions, every one is espresso with something added, and the drinks line up neatly along a single axis: how much milk, and how it was textured.

Once you see that, the menu becomes predictable. A macchiato is the least milk; a latte is the most. Everything else sits between them.

**Figure: Milk per drink, at standard sizes**

| Item | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Espresso (No milk at all) | 0 ml |
| Macchiato (A spoon of foam) | 10 ml |
| Cortado (Equal to the shot) | 30 ml |
| Flat white (Thin microfoam) | 120 ml |
| Cappuccino (Half of it foam) | 120 ml |
| Latte (Light foam layer) | 220 ml |

_The axis that separates the espresso-based menu. Coffee content is broadly constant; milk is the variable._

## The espresso-based drinks

**What is actually in each drink. Shot counts follow common practice, not any binding standard.**

| Drink | Espresso | Milk | Foam | Total |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Espresso | 1–2 shots | None | Crema only | 30–60 ml |
| Macchiato | 1 shot | None | A spoon | ~40 ml |
| Cortado | 1 shot | ~30 ml steamed | Minimal | 60–90 ml |
| Piccolo | 1 shot | ~60 ml steamed | Thin | ~90 ml |
| Flat white | 2 shots | ~120 ml steamed | Thin microfoam | 150–180 ml |
| Cappuccino | 1–2 shots | ~60 ml steamed | ~60 ml foam | 150–180 ml |
| Latte | 1–2 shots | ~200 ml steamed | ~1 cm foam | 240–350 ml |
| Mocha | 1–2 shots | ~200 ml steamed | Often cream | 240–350 ml |
| Americano | 1–2 shots | None | None | 150–350 ml |

> **Flat white versus latte** — A flat white is not simply a smaller latte. It uses two shots against a latte's one or two, in roughly half the total volume, with much thinner foam. The result is noticeably more coffee-forward — the point of the drink.

## The distinctions people get wrong

- Cappuccino versus latte: the coffee is identical. A cappuccino has roughly equal parts steamed milk and dry foam; a latte is mostly steamed milk with a thin foam cap.
- Macchiato: in a café it means an espresso 'marked' with a spoonful of foam — a tiny, intense drink. The large sweetened iced versions sold by chains are unrelated to it.
- Americano versus lungo: an americano is a normal shot with hot water added afterwards. A lungo runs extra water through the grounds during extraction, which extracts more bitterness. See [what is an espresso shot](https://trysix.online/what-is-an-espresso-shot).
- Latte in Italy: ordering a 'latte' in Italy gets you a glass of milk. The drink is a caffè latte.
- Café au lait: not espresso-based at all — brewed coffee with scalded milk. [What is café au lait](https://trysix.online/what-is-cafe-au-lait) covers it.

## What milk texture actually is

Steaming does two things at once. It heats the milk, and it injects air into it, forming a foam of tiny bubbles suspended in the liquid. Heating also denatures milk proteins, which stabilise those bubbles, and releases perceived sweetness as lactose becomes more noticeable at around 140°F.

### Why the same milk becomes three different textures

1. **Microfoam — flat white, latte art** — Air introduced briefly at the start, then the steam wand submerged to spin the milk. The bubbles are too small to see individually, giving a glossy, paint-like texture that pours.
2. **Dry foam — cappuccino** — More air, introduced for longer, producing visibly larger bubbles and a stiffer foam that sits on top rather than mixing in. This is what gives a cappuccino its distinct layers.
3. **Barely textured — cortado** — Heated with minimal aeration. The point of a cortado is to cut the espresso's acidity with milk, not to add texture.
4. **Overheated — the common fault at home** — Past about 160°F the proteins break down, the foam collapses, and the milk starts to taste cooked and flat. Milk for coffee should be steamed to roughly 140–150°F, not to boiling.

## Iced and cold drinks

**The cold end of the menu.**

| Drink | Base | Note |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Iced latte | Espresso, cold milk, ice | Not a chilled hot latte; never steamed |
| Iced americano | Espresso, cold water, ice | Cleanest way to drink espresso cold |
| Iced coffee | Hot-brewed coffee, chilled | Brew at double strength — [how to make iced coffee](https://trysix.online/how-to-make-iced-coffee) |
| Cold brew | Steeped 12–24 h, never heated | A different extraction — [cold brew vs iced coffee](https://trysix.online/cold-brew-vs-iced-coffee) |
| Affogato | Ice cream with a shot poured over | Dessert; usually a single shot |

## Non-espresso coffee drinks

Not everything on a menu comes from the machine. Filter or batch brew is drip coffee, brewed at about 1:16 and served black or with a splash of milk. Turkish coffee is extremely finely ground coffee simmered with the water and served unfiltered, grounds and all. Instant is dried, previously brewed coffee.

These sit outside the milk axis entirely, and they taste different for structural reasons rather than stylistic ones — a filter coffee is roughly a tenth as concentrated as espresso, which lets individual origin flavours separate out instead of arriving all at once. [Espresso vs coffee](https://trysix.online/espresso-vs-coffee) works through that comparison.

> **Sizes are not standardised** — There is no governing body for café drink sizes, and a large cappuccino in one shop can hold more milk than a small latte in another. Shot count is the only number that transfers between shops — which is why ordering by shots rather than by cup size gets you what you actually want.

## Frequently asked questions

### What is the difference between a latte and a cappuccino?

The coffee is the same; the milk differs. A cappuccino is roughly equal parts espresso, steamed milk and dry foam, totalling 150–180 ml. A latte is the same espresso with 200 ml or more of steamed milk and only a thin foam cap, so it tastes far milkier.

### Is a flat white just a small latte?

No. A flat white typically uses two shots in 150–180 ml with thin microfoam, while a latte uses one or two shots in 240 ml or more with a foam cap. The flat white has more coffee relative to milk, which is the point of the drink.

### Which coffee drink has the most caffeine?

Whichever contains the most espresso. Milk adds volume but no caffeine, so a large latte with two shots has the same caffeine as a double espresso. A drip coffee often beats them all, because an 8 oz cup carries about 95 mg against a double shot's 126 mg in a much smaller serving.

### What is a macchiato?

An espresso 'marked' with a spoonful of milk foam — a small, intense drink of about 40 ml. The large sweetened iced drinks sold under the name by coffee chains are a different product entirely and bear little relation to it.

## Sources

- [What Is Coffee?](https://www.ncausa.org/About-Coffee/What-is-Coffee) — National Coffee Association USA. Supports the general classification of coffee drinks and preparation methods.
- [Spilling the Beans: How Much Caffeine is Too Much?](https://www.fda.gov/consumers/consumer-updates/spilling-beans-how-much-caffeine-too-much) — U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Supports the caffeine figures used to compare espresso-based drinks with brewed coffee.
- [Using Single Free Sorting and Multivariate Exploratory Methods to Design a New Coffee Taster's Flavor Wheel](https://doi.org/10.1111/1750-3841.13555) — Journal of Food Science (2016) (DOI 10.1111/1750-3841.13555). Supports the sensory vocabulary used to describe how these preparations differ in the cup.

## Related articles

- https://trysix.online/what-is-cafe-au-lait
- https://trysix.online/what-is-an-espresso-shot
- https://trysix.online/what-is-espresso
- https://trysix.online/espresso-vs-coffee

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