Why is there no coffee for matcha latte? What does Latte mean? Does latte mean milk?

"A cup of espresso with a lot of milk" is our common understanding of the word "latte." But many friends have found that not all products called "lattes" come with coffee.

For example, we can often see products in coffee shops: Matcha latte, roasted tea latte, red velvet latte, Ahuatian latte and other products. Although they are all called lattes, many stores produce versions without coffee. As a result, this caused many mistakes and also caused many problems. For example, Qianjie often receives questions such as: "It's obviously called a latte, but why doesn't it contain coffee? "And," Why order a latte when there's no coffee? "

Why do some "lattes" contain no coffee? First of all, we need to know that the word "latte" is transliterated from Latte, a word derived from Italian. There has been a sharing in the front street before, and there is a popular paragraph on the Internet: "If you go to an Italian cafe and want to order a latte, but when you order it, you tell the clerk Latte instead of Caffè latte, then the clerk will bring you a glass of milk. "

In the early days, that would have happened. In Italian, Latte means milk, while Caffè latte means coffee with milk. When you order a glass of milk, you get coffee-free milk. The "latte" in matcha latte and red velvet latte restores the original meaning of the word Latte, that is, milk, so when converted, it means "matcha milk" and "red velvet milk", which is naturally understandable without coffee. But! The reason why Qianjie calls it an early situation is that with the popularity of lattes, the word latte has gradually been defaulted as the "abbreviation" of latte, so that nowadays when we mention lattes, the first thing we think of is milk coffee, followed by milk. This is also why names like matcha latte will become the trigger for the Oolong incident.

In the mid-19th century,"Caffè" and "Latte" were included in Italian dictionaries and began to be used uniformly. Although the practice of mixing milk and coffee had long existed at that time, the two words were not used together at that time. It was not until 30 years later, in 1867, that American writer William Dean Howells first used "Caffe e latte" to describe a cup of milk and coffee mixed drink in his book "Journey to Italy." However, because the espresso machine had not yet been invented at that time, the "Caffe latte" at that time only added milk to the brewed espresso, and its name was not well known to the world. It was not until the advent of espresso machines that "latte" in the broad sense had the opportunity to "officially debut" and be recognized by everyone. Then from here on, it is also a story often mentioned at the front street meeting ~

In the 1950s and 1960s, many Italians immigrated to the United States with coffee machines and opened stores there to make a living. However, because Americans were not used to drinking the high-strength coffee made by espresso machines, stores had to localize their products. Improvement, that is, when in Rome, do as the Romans do. Latte coffee was born in a "Caffe Mediterraneum" in California. In the past, the store added more milk to traditional cappuccino, so that the bitterness of the coffee could be diluted by the sweetness of the milk. Therefore, the whole cup of coffee has a higher acceptance. Then the cappuccino with more milk was placed on the menu. In order to distinguish it from traditional cappuccino, the store named it "Caffè e latte " because it has more milk characteristics, which translates to milk coffee.

Subsequently, this espresso with a large amount of milk was well received locally, and then spread from the United States to the world due to the rise of chain brands and the spread of the art of pulling flowers. As coffee gradually integrated into people's daily lives, people began to habitually refer to the name "Caffè latte" as "Latte" for short. So since the 1980s, Latte has been defaulted as the "abbreviation" of Caffè latte. When we talk about lattes outside Italy, the first thing most people think of is espresso with a lot of milk. In fact, local Italy has also been affected to a certain extent. When foreign tourists order with "Latte" in Italian cafes, they no longer receive a cup of milk, but a cup of milk coffee (high probability).

So this leads to the second question. Since it is easy to be misunderstood by calling it "latte", why do coffee shops still use "latte" to name products without coffee?

Why not just call it "milk" and call it a latte? There are two reasons. The first is that these products are produced in the same form as lattes. Whether it is matcha lattes, red velvet, roasted tea and other non-coffee lattes, they will be made just like lattes, using a large amount of beaten milk to blend with the base, and then using milk bubbles to draw delicate patterns on the surface (hot drinks practice). Both the appearance and the production process are very different from those of a latte. The word "latte" can perfectly interpret these characteristics and is "easy" for customers to understand, so this became the first reason to name it with "latte."

Another reason is that stores believe that naming "latte", a technical term in the coffee industry, will allow these products without coffee to be associated with coffee shops. So compared to "milk", most stores prefer to name them "latte". But generally speaking, these coffee-free "lattes" are classified into the "coffee-free area" of the menu, so we just need to see which category they are placed in the menu, or consult the clerk in advance, and basically there won't be too many "backfires".

- END -