Coffee: the way it should be

May 13, 2013 • 12:07 pm

From that’s nerdalicious (and created by Pop Chart Lab and Orbit Visual Graphic Design), a chart with the proper ratios of espresso drinks. (Click to enlarge, or go to a larger version here.) Make mine a latte in the morning and a doppio after lunch.

Note: there’s no caramel or other goodies that turn coffee into chazerai.

Print

34 thoughts on “Coffee: the way it should be”

  2. Thanks for this useful chart! Only today I had occasion to ask what the difference was between a latte and a flat white. “Not a lot,” was the answer, but your chart is more informative.

    1. One place I get coffee the order usually is a flat white and a cappuccino. The flat white always ends up more like a latte in fact they both end up looking like lattes but whatever.
      Then the girl looks at me and says ‘One of these is a cappuccino right?’ I nod and she shakes the cocoa on top of one and hands them over.
      Same thing happens at a lot of places really. I’m not sure this chart would help them though. They aren’t professionals and seem only trained to foam the milk.

  4. Café bombón is very popular in the Basque region of Spain. It’s very nice, especially as I’m a lover of condensed milk!

    1. Cafe bombon is popular in Vietnam, too, where it’s called “ca phe sua”. Usually it’s served da, which is over ice or you can get it nong (hot but you’re in the tropics). I’ve had it all over the south and it’s got a certain flavor quality, no matter how much milk is in it, that I didn’t get in Hanoi, Ha Long, or in the States.

      The texture with the condensed milk is a delight to the tongue.

  5. I’m a cappucoino/espresso person myself. I don’t mind the occasional latte.

    The only downside is that the closest ‘good’ cafe is 25-30 min away. 🙁

  6. My favourite thing in the whole world just might be a drip coffee from Abraco in New York…

  9. I’m partial to mocha. Our neighbourhood has a Belgium Chocolatier that makes the best cafe mocha going.

        1. Well, it’s just that I see “Belgium chocolate” &c. So often these days, I’m starting to feel that it’s correct for a reason I don’t know…

          /@

  10. You know, sfter some years of trying I had to admit I did not like mocha. My brain says that is what I want, my tongue was saying ‘blech’ all along. My fav is chai latte. But there are many others I have not even tried.

  11. Too many not-so-hot espresso bars (notably Starbucks) go way over the canonical milk proportions, drowning everything in milk to hide not-so-great espresso. Their macchiatos are almost a dry cappuccino, cappuccinos are glorified lattes, and their lattes are steamed milk with a little espresso flavoring.

    I was a heavy mocha drinker for years, before having second thoughts about what a daily cup of hot chocolate was doing to my waisteline. I evolved more minimally to cappuccinos and now doppio macchiato with a little bit of half-and-half and a half pack of sugar. Which is actually *really* tasty if its from a barrista who knows how to pull a good shot.

  12. Funny, you have the term “latte” on the pictured chart. Where I live, Southern Italy, if you ask for a “latte” you might get a cup of milk, especially if they think you are an American (known to order, besides coffee, glasses of milk with lunch). Ah well, Italians ordering lunch in London are faced with incomprehension when they ask for bread with their lunch.

    1. Indeed, “caffellatte” is what you would ask for, at least up north.

      So true about the bread. “Fare scarpetta”, i.e. cleaning off the remaining sauce on your plate with bread, is the proper appreciative way to finish off a dish. A meal without bread? Can’t do without.

  14. What coffee I drink depends on time of day, what I’m doing, mood etc. For instance, if I’m on early shift and getting up at 04.00hrs then all I want (and am capable of making) is a cup of instant with one cow and no shit. Yeah, it’s blurgh, but it does the job and peels the eyelids back which, at that time of night (I refuse to call that daytime) is all that’s required.

  16. It’s getting cold here in the Antipodes – where’s the cafe corretto? What about the cafe amaretto?

    1. Indeed, the “caffé corretto” is missing. “Corretto grappa”, the best thing after a good meal!

  18. Unfortunately, I have spent a good bit of time drinking coffee in Colombia and Venezuela. I have never found anything to compare with it. In Colombia I usually drank “Tinto Grande”, large cups of black coffee. In Venezuela we made coffee by pouring boiling water through finely ground coffee, bought at the supermercado, in a coffee sock. If I was not up first, the guys would pour me a cup of black, then put the rest in a blender with powdered whole milk and sugar for themselves.

    I would often, when out, drink a “Marron”, espresso with a little milk and some sugar.

    I spent a couple of weeks in Costa Rica and thought the coffee vile.

    Incidentally, Colombian friends tell me that ordering tinto in Spain will get you the house red wine.

  20. I really like coffee, but I don’t care much for what it does to me — I get anxious, jittery, and fidgety.

    So, once every few months or so (especially if I’m on a road trip), I’ll have a cup with breakfast. I’ll really enjoy it, and it will be sufficient.

    As such, I’ll go with whatever happens to be the specialty of wherever I’m eating.

    …but, give me a choice where all options are good, and it’ll likely be an espresso, maybe a doppio, with a Turkish coffee in close contention.

    I am, however, a daily tea drinker; I make a two-cup / 500 ml pot for breakfast. I buy exclusively from Strand Tea and can’t recommend them highly enough. I seem to be drawn to the high mountain teas, with Wuyi Mountain Shuixian Oolong my current favorite, and Yun Wu my favorite green. But Strand is also the place to go for whatever your tea preferences…they send samples with every order, and I’ll even drink their flavored teas — and I normally wouldn’t go near such an abomination.

    Cheers,

    b&

  22. Here in Canada the No 1 option seems to be Double-Double from Tim Horton’s (one at every intersection). Large black pleae for me. Simples.

Comments are closed.