The Italian terms that describe the simple coffee drink that the average customer wanted were probably too hard to pronounce. Those ordering a black coffee could probably mumble through by requesting some additional hot water, but those ordering a coffee with milk would often end up with a cappuccino. When confronted with customers ordering a “black coffee” or a “white coffee” they would have been thoroughly confused. The basics being an espresso and cappuccino. The Italian proprietors would be used to accepting orders using the Italian naming conventions for coffee. The flat white was born from the combination of Italian cafe culture and Antipodian casualness. My theory on the origins of the flat white is that it comes from the overlap between customers used to simple plunger coffee at home and the birth of Italian cafes in Sydney, Melbourne and Auckland run by new immigrants from Europe. For example, an espresso topped up with hot water is called a long black. Every other coffee name is built on that convention. In New Zealand, a shot of espresso is called a short black. This style of coffee makes for a nice long mug of black coffee or a warm comforting white coffee made with just a splash of milk. Most coffee at home in New Zealand is made using a french press or as we call it, a plunger. So a common question you would ask a guest is “Would you like your coffee black or white?” Making plunger coffee at home. The basic convention for describing coffee prepared at home in New Zealand is to refer to coffee without milk as black and coffee with milk as white. To understand why this is, we need to go back to how coffee was made in the home in New Zealand before cafes became a popular place to hang out. I think the flat white was an attempt to get cafes to make the sort of coffee that New Zealanders were used to making at home. My theory is that the origin of the flat white is the humble coffee mug. And while I’ve previously written a summary of the various definitions of the flat white, to really understand the origins of the drink, we need to go back in time to the 1980s. Both New Zealand and Australia claim to have coined the term “”flat white”. The origins of the flat white are hotly contested.
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