When you’re pondering what to get for your morning caffeine boost, it’s easy to be overwhelmed by the sheer number of choices available to you. While they all may seem similar – coffee, milk, foam, etc – there are distinct differences between each coffee drink you’ve heard of (and perhaps haven’t.)
What most would call ‘American coffee’ is just the mixture of coffee grounds and water. Depending on the quality of the beans, you could go ahead and drink the coffee black, without adding coffee or sugar. However, there are a number of other ways to take your coffee that is a bit more exciting.
Espresso Coffee Drink
An espresso coffee drink is considered to be more European than American, but most American coffee chains carry some derivative and selection of espresso-based coffee drinks. Espresso is made when coffee grounds are compressed down into a dense mass of coffee, and then hot water is forced through the mass via a high pressure system (generally via an Espresso machine of some kind). The extraction that comes out of that is the espresso base of many drinks (or, if you’re feeling especially adventurous, you can take the espresso as it is).
Cappuccinos and café lattes are two examples of espresso-based drinks that are enormously popular. And while they share the same base product, there are distinct differences between them otherwise.
Cappuccinos
A cappuccino is made with frothed milk and espresso. The milk is frothed with a wand attached to the espresso machine, which essentially whips is up like a beater would to egg whites. The foam created is about twice the volume of the milk you originally started with. That frothy texture is what draws many people to the cappuccino, because it adds a certain texture to coffee that it wouldn’t have otherwise. When building the cappuccino, the espresso is placed in the bottom of a wide-bottomed cup, and then the foamed milk is added on top. Delicious.
Cafe Latte
The café latte is made a little differently. Just like with the cappuccino, you’re starting the drink with espresso, and like with the cappuccino, you’re using milk. But instead of frothing the milk like we did with the cappuccino, you’re using the wand to steam the milk, which is basically just heating it up until there is a small, but distinct, head of froth on the top. You put the heated milk over top of the espresso and you’re good to go.
With a cappuccino it’s best to use skim milk, because the milk will froth better due to its high volume of protein. When making the latte, it doesn’t really matter what kind of milk you use because the goal is just to heat the milk but not make it very foamy.
As you can see, espresso-based drinks, while similar, have a distinct air about them that makes them popular choices for American consumers.