Comments on: So what exactly is a macchiato these days?

By: Still Climbing the Fresh Ascent « chode school.

Still Climbing the Fresh Ascent « chode school. — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 05:46:14 +0000

[...] on and baristas dropped out one by one. Before I knew it I was in the final round. The drinks (a free-pour macchiato) were made. And the winner, myself, was chosen. A total of 20 baristas, some of them regional [...]

By: Chris

Chris — Sun, 24 May 2009 00:06:07 +0000

Yes I agree BZ,
the traditional (correct) ways to make coffe(s) have been ruined by coffee houses wanting to come up with their own styles (Star…ks), baristas that want to show off with a new found talent, (if I want to view art I go to the gallery, to drink coffe I go to a cafe) and inexperienced cafes not want to serve a coffee the size it should be!!!, because the customer is sometime uneducated (possibly from frequenting Star…ks) and thinks they are getting short changed with just a shot of coffee in the cup.

By: joe cappuccino

joe cappuccino — Sun, 08 Jul 2007 13:32:18 +0000

i prefer making a macchiato full to the rim with milk. i have been making them with a little maple syrup (im in vermont) and cocoa powder atop the espresso before the milk. thses are called cuarto(lito) however you spell them they are awsome! ever tried the cocoa or cinnamon before the milk? it blends in and creates a nice effect.

i also make a drink with bailies irish cream and godiva chocolate liquer, a short count of creme de cacao steamed /1/2/whole cocoa powder and double shot.

lemme know
joe

By: Hug

Hug — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 18:21:16 +0000

Just tested the Macchiato order on one of the better restaurants in Truro whilst celebrating the smoking ban… Asked whether thay could do one, got a confident ‘of course…’ then didn’t get what I expected. I think it was a single shot in a 3oz cup, but was completely hidden under a huge pile of milk foam/meringue , no sign of art but decorated with a single, artfully poised coffee bean…..

Good espresso though…

By: Matt

Matt — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 09:41:33 +0000

Funny point on the bambinocino… In Australia, a babycino is pretty common on a lot of cafe menu’s where trendy mums and dads bring the kids along on their coffee breaks.

A babycino is just a cup of foam with chocolate sprinkled on top…

I have however been to a few places where the barista ( more likely kid behind the counter ) doesn’t know what a babycino is, and so they go ahead and pull a shot into a tiny cup and top it up with a bunch of foam and sprinkled chocolate, just like a mini capp… Then hand it to an infant… haha. I guess kids have to start somewhere…

As for macchiato, I prefer mine with a bit more than a dash of steamed milk, on top of a relatively short double shot. Much more than that is what I’d call a piccolo latte, which is also popping up on a number of menu’s here in Australia.

By: Edmundo

Edmundo — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 22:42:57 +0000

It is clear from all the comments that there is deffinately no text book definition of a macchiato. I was in Torino, Italy a few months ago and they served macchiatos in a full espresso cup so about 1:1 ratio espresso:milk, at best, often the shots were pulled very shots so then the ratios start to favour the milk. After that my traditional definition ‘italian style’ macchiato just got blown out of the water.

So I revert back to my origional stratergy, make and serve drinks that taste great… the customers are our tasters and they are fussy… make it how thay like it….

Back to the starting question, what exactly is a macchiato? you could ask the same question for all espresso based drinks served in this country!

By: Tim Styles

Tim Styles — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 11:31:39 +0000

I’ve always poured macchiati as a 20ml espresso, with about 15ml of textured milk spooned directly into the centre of the crema, and served in a Duralex Provence picollo glass.

Here in London, people seem to prefer a lot more milk in their macchiati (which aren’t a rare order here in the East), and of course, we oblige.

We often point customers towards the picollo latte – being a 20ml espresso shot, and the glass filled as per a normal ‘caffe latte’.

Beyond that, between the picollo and the latte, we offer what we call a Gibraltar, which a lot of people call the Cortado. It’s basically the same latte ratio again, but served in a Duralex Provence 5.6oz glass.

They’re slowly catching on.

We’ve got descriiptions to try to help our customers, on our website under “Menu”: Climpson & Sons, Hackney.

By: Daniel

Daniel — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 07:36:39 +0000

At my place of employment we ask each customer if they’d like a “traditional” or “free pour” macchiato and give them the rundown. If they look at us like we’re crazy then it’s the “Oh…you meant the Starbucks version, didn’t you?”

It seems like most people prefer the “free pour” version (I does seem like a U.S. thing), but it is always nice to make sure. I think most would agree with me that it’s horribly obnoxious to have to remake a drink due to a misunderstanding. It seems that those terms are pretty decent descriptors for the different styles, and people tend to appreciate it when we try to clarify.

By: Hug

Hug — Mon, 25 Jun 2007 21:16:39 +0000

If a customer is coffee savvy enough to order a macchiato, chances are they aren’t after a pretty drink and latte art won’t make them Ooh or Aah. Quite possibly the opposite, yeah it’s pretty but with that much milk it’s missing the point of the drink.

If you can pull a great espresso, and you’ve a customer who knows that and wants to taste it, a fern’s unlikely to give the customer what he wants.

By: Marcy

Marcy — Mon, 25 Jun 2007 12:37:53 +0000

Glad you tackled this one, Jim :)

Caffe Macchiato is my fave espresso-based drink and always the ’safety’ drink I order first when ordering in a new (for me) place before ever braving an espresso. I was sorely disappointed in both Vancouver and Seattle when upon ordering (and making certain it wasn’t a Latte Macchiato) I received what was, at the very least, a 1:1 drink – some with and some without art.

The only place I got a traditional 1-spoon foam CM, without specifying exactly, was in Vienna (Mocca Club). I’ll admit though that, at home, I prefer to pour the milk rather than spoon it and it’s usually more than just a spoon’s worth but definitely not a 1:1 ratio. I have a really cute little 40ml milk jug to steam my milk with absolutely no milk wastage :D

I don’t really order any e-based drinks in the Netherlands… mostly because I’m not keen on their brewing methods… often scaldingly hot. I’d rather just wait til I get home to make my own coffee.

Apart from BazBean’s place (UK) where I don’t have to watch behind the bar to know I’ll get a proper fab drink, I didn’t get to visit ‘recommended’ places and have only seen the chains serve such huge North American sized drinks. The ’smallest’ capp I saw in the chains were bigger than my biggest 5-6 oz cups at home!

On the grammar… I’m glad I wasn’t the only one who noticed, but consciously refrained from counting, the “whilsts” on the Roadtrip series :P

BTW, cute term “bambiccino” :) Without an explanation, I would’ve have guessed it to be somewhere between and CM & a capp.