How to Make a Modern Macchiato
This guide is based on the typical macchiato you get in most quality cafes in North America.
This beverage is more of a 1:0.5 up to a 1:1 ratio drink of espresso to foamed and steamed milk. It’s a great drink on it’s own, but we’re not sure if it should be still called a macchiato, since it’s not just marked with milk foam, but indulged, imbibed, saturated with milk foam and steamed milk.
Time Needed: 4 minutes
Equipment Cost $ 450
Necessary Supplies
Necessary Tools
Modern Macchiato Steps
Prepare a Double Shot
Macchiatos in N. America are almost always feature a short double shot as the foundation. The aim is about 40-45ml of espresso in about 25-30 seconds extraction, so grind and prep your portafilter accordingly. Optionally, you could go even smaller and pull a double ristretto shot as the foundation.
Preheat the Cup
Again, this is a tiny drink, so having everything nicely preheated will aid in providing you a better overall beverage. Also, we’re using a slightly larger demitasse cup here (it’s actually a 1950s Hotel Vancouver demitasse cup, holding about 80mls total), due to the larger volume of milk we’ll be adding later.
Brew the Shot
Brew the shot into the cup, aiming for 40-45ml doing a normal short double, or 30ml if doing a ristretto.
Prepare your Milk
Again, we like to use whole milk with a small boost of 10% cream (so use 100ml of whole milk, 25ml of 10% cream.
Finish the Shot
By the time you have your milk sorted, your shot should be done, delivering you 40-45ml (or 30ml for a ristretto). Time to move on to milk.
Begin Stretching the Milk
A super advanced trick to know about steaming milk: only do the stretching portion (the time you’re actively creating foam) until the pitcher is the temperature of your hand. Once the milk is luke warm, you’re done stretching and should fully submerge the wand. We’ll talk more about this later in the article.
Submerge Wand, Continue Steaming
Once the pitcher is roughly your hand temperature, submerge the wand towards the bottom of the pitcher, and finish bringing the pitcher up to about 140-145F.
Knock Down Bubbles (Optional)
If you still have big bubbles in your pitcher once you’re done steaming (hey, we’ve all done it), knock them down by tapping the pitcher on your counter. Also, give the pitcher a swirl, then let the milk and foam settle for a few seconds.
Method A: Free Pour Milk
If you produced a nice tight pourable microfoam, go ahead and pour out your foamy milk combo into your cup; even try your hand at latte art; but don’t pour more milk than you have espresso (so if you have 45ml of espresso, only pour out about 45ml of milk and foam).
Method B: Spoon it Out
Use a spoon to restrict the flow of milk froth, and pour in about 10-20ml of steamed milk into the double shot of espresso. Then use the spoon to scoop up some foam and layer it on top of the crema.
This North American method of building the macchiato delivers a very nice taste, and gives skilled baristas another way to show off their artistry. It’s not easy pouring latte art in an espresso cup, but many can pull it off. Here’s one of my best all time macchiato pours, done way back in 2003; I called it the apple heart.
Modern MacchiatoHistory and Development
The modern macchiato… it could be around 25 years old, or less. I remember being in a very authentic Italian cafe in Vancouver in 1994, and when I ordered a macchiato (a drink I was already familiar with thanks to some time spent in Italy), I got it Italian style – a single shot of espresso with a dollop of foam on top. This was true for just about every cafe of the day that served espresso.
I think the first time I ever saw or drank the macchiato detailed in this guide was in the late 1990s in Seattle; specifically at Espresso Vivace, the birthplace of latte art in North America. They poured foamed milk into the small espresso cup, pouring a heart on top. It was impressive!
Vivace had a ton of influence on both professional and home baristas in the late 1990s, and their style of the macchiato – the free poured, 1:1 ratio drink – caught on like wildfire. By the early 2000s, if you ordered a macchiato in almost any true specialty coffee cafe, you got the Vivace style, with one big difference. Vivace always pulled ristretto shots (they still do, to this day). Most specialty coffee cafes pull “normales”, or a more traditional 45-60ml double.
This necessitated two things: either brewing true singles (splitting a double shot into two espresso cups) so the cup could accommodate the poured milk and foam, or brewing the complete double into a slightly larger cup to pour a macchiato.
For this reason, the “gibraltar” drink (which is really a cortado) was born. The libby glass chosen, which held maybe 125ml comfortably, was better suited for a macchiato with latte art on top. Problem is, that’s a cortado drink: usually a 1.5:1 ratio of steamed/frothed milk to espresso.
Different drink, different taste balance.
Which brings us back to the modern macchiato and its 0.5/1:1 ratio of milk to espresso. It is a different tasting drink than the traditional macchiato. Very different in fact.
The traditional, outlined in another guide here, is very much an espresso forward drink. The most espresso-forward outside of the Americano, in fact. Espresso dominates the taste, and the dollop of milk foam just teases.
The modern macchiato is very different in that it is a teeter-totter balance between the espresso and the steamed and frothed milk. Which brings up another point.
Because there is so little steamed and frothed milk in this beverage compared to a cappuccino or latte, I’d argue that your technique, skill and timing on frothing and heating the milk is way more important than it is for a cappuccino or latte. In this guide we talk about the importance of maintaining the maximum sweetness in the milk foam. It is so important, it is its own step in the guide above.
The small amount of milk and foam used is such that I actually prefer the spooned version of this drink because you can dollop out more sweet foam and a bit less steamed milk. That gives the drink a better balance and makes the milk have a real impact on the espresso taste.
But that’s just me. You should experiment and try different ratios and builds of this drink. Try it with hotter milk. Try it with milk you froth and foam only up to 120F. Try it with 100% foam, no steamed milk (but around 3x the volume of froth compared to the traditional macchiato). Stir. Don’t stir. Find the way you like it best, and let us know in the comments below what works for you!
(sidenote: our comments system isn’t algorithm based; we don’t need your comments to boost our visibility – we just really want to hear from you!)
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