If you are a caffeine lover, chances are you keep on drinking coffee throughout your daily life, but a regular coffee sometimes just stops cutting it, it just needs a little twist so that you can later on keep on enjoying it the same way. There are other drinks out there, but coffee needs to be part of them.
Coffee makers now this and as such, they have invented a lot of other beverages that include coffee so that you can vary a little bit and still feel the amazing pleasure that coffee is going to be giving you. A lot of people don’t know true happiness in the morning until the first drop of coffee goes into their mouth and touches their soul.
With so many drinks out there, it might be hard to make a decision and you certainly don’t want to spend hundreds of dollars trying every single one of them out, at least for now. As such, in this article, we are going to look at the differences between two of the most popular ones out there. The espresso and the cappuccino.
Espresso
We have all heard about the espresso and most likely, we have all tasted the espresso at some point in our lives. This is the type of coffee that we see out there every day on pretty much every regular coffee shop out there, and it is the tradition to drink an espresso throughout the world daily. Most people, when they go to a coffee shop, end up ordering an espresso.
Preparation
The espresso is usually done in a machine in which all you have to do is insert the ground coffee beans and press a few buttons, but the real process that is going on behind all of those buttons is fairly simple. Almost boiling water is forced through the fine ground coffee beans in order to make the espresso.
Usually, the espresso is a little bit thicker than other types of coffee, and it is generally a little bit more concentrated, which means it is packed with flavor. On top of that, it has crema (this is a small amount of creamy foam on top of the espresso).
Rise in Popularity and Consumption?
Since it has higher concentration, the espresso also has a higher concentration of caffeine in it, but it isn’t to any harmful point. As a matter of fact, the amount of caffeine in an espresso is much smaller than the amount of caffeine that you would find in other types of coffee, since the amount that is usually served in an espresso is incredibly small.
The espresso has skyrocketed in popularity since the 1980s, in which it became the most common type of coffee to be consumed throughout the world. Since it is such a simple type of coffee, it is also used as a base for other drinks and as such, this contributed to the popularity that the espresso has. Now, the espresso has managed to spread into homes with kitchen-friendly machines, and it seems to keep on growing over time.
Cappuccino
A cappuccino is a traditional Italian drink that consists of a few ingredients. As a base, this drink has espresso, as well as hot milk, steamed milk foam and some places even use cream instead of milk. Typically, the drink is topped off with some cinnamon, but some people also use cocoa powder on it.
It is usually a little bigger in volume when compared to the normal espresso, but it is also smaller in volume if we compare it to other drinks such as a caffe latte. Even though the size is average, it usually has a thick layer of micro foam on top of it. The modern look of the cappuccino is the result of year and years of evolution of the drink, since it didn’t use to be like this back in the day.
Preparation
Usually, cappuccinos are prepared in an espresso machine. The person doing the cappuccino just needs to pour the espresso into the cup, than a similar amount of hot milk on top of it, and then add the milk foam. It might sound easy, but doing it properly isn’t easy at all and it gets a little tough for the cappuccino maker whenever there are a lot of orders pilling up.
Usually, the milk that is used in a cappuccino is textured milk. This is milk that is heated with steam inserted directly into it. What this does is create a lot of tin bubbles, which give the milky a velvety texture. With the use of this texture, the addition of the milk isn’t going to damage the overall texture of the cappuccino.
Summary of Both
To summarize, the essential difference between an espresso and a cappuccino is that the espresso is a type of coffee that is made with hot water, usually though a machine in order to give it the best possible texture and concentrated flavor, for people to enjoy. It is a widespread drink that has been growing in popularity, so much so, that it is used as a base for other drinks.
Among these drinks we can find the cappuccino. The cappuccino is a traditional Italian drink that has espresso used as a base for it, with other ingredients including textured milk as well as milk foam. On top of that, it usually has some cinnamon placed on the top to give it a little bit of extra flavor.