Via Metafilter today comes word of a new espresso drink which has taken the city of London by storm.  The "Flat White," which was reportedly developed in New Zealand (or perhaps Australia - but trust me, it's best to stand back and let the two of them duke it out) and quickly became popular in damp dreary London.

The Flat White can best be understood by the American audience as a double short no-foam latte.  It begins with two shots of espresso pulled ristretto - short - in order to maximize flavor while minimizing bitterness.  There are three ways to pull a ristretto shot:

1.    Grind the beans more finely, and pull a normal amount of water through them.  Since the water has less contact with the finer grinds, it will extract less bitterness from them.

2.    Use the same espresso grind, but pull the shot for less time.  This results in a literally shorter shot, between half to three fourths the volume of a regular shot.

3.    With an old school manual espresso maker, from which the term originates, pull the shot more quickly.  This results in the same amount of water coming through the grounds, but faster, so that they spend less time passing through the grounds.
Needless to say, in most coffee shops the barista has no control over the espresso grind, and the second method is used.

The next step is to steam a pitcher of milk as usual, but use a spoon or spatula to hold back the foam as you pour the milk.  Less milk is added to the espresso shot compared to a normal latte.  Either no foam, or just a tiny amount of decorative foam, is added at the very end.

I was surprised to learn that I had invented the Flat White myself a few months ago.  If you make espresso for yourself, I think it is probably natural to gravitate towards using less milk in relationship to the espresso.  Not least because milk isn't cheap!  

I also use a minimum of milk because frankly I don't have the patience to stand there and steam an entire pitcher of milk first thing in the morning.  I end up with a beverage which is about half coffee and half steamed milk by volume, with a varying amount of foam on top, depending on the sloppiness or precision of my steaming technique at the time.

The Flat White is more than just heated milk dropped onto a few shots of espresso, though.   When you steam milk in a pitcher, it turns from a straightforward liquid into a micro foam.  Even if you brush off or hold back the foam at the top of the pitcher, the liquid milk below is a blend of fine microscopic bubbles, held in a pourable structure by the milk's chemistry.  This gives the Flat White the same velvety texture as a good latte, but without as much milk to dilute the espresso's flavor.

After reading about the Flat White this morning, I certainly hope that it is adopted by coffee shops here in the States!

Creative Commons-licensed image courtesy of Flickr user Subspace