The macchiato is essentially a superficial “macho” move by men in Italy who couldn’t bear the stigma when ordering the afternoon child’s drink (the cappuccino), but absolutely needed a bit of milk in their espresso because they didn’t like espresso’s straight bitterness.

I’m not kidding. The cappuccino and its variants have existed in Italy almost as long as the espresso machine has (even machines from the 1910s had steam arms for frothing and heating milk); but it’s always been seen as a child’s drink, or at best, the first coffee you have in the morning. To order a cappuccino after 12pm marked you as less than a man, in Italian culture. It’s ridiculous, but it’s also true, and even true to this day (the stigma, that is).

Some people just don’t like espresso without milk. But they want to take part, so at some point in the 1920s or 1930s in Italy, the idea of dropping a dollop or two of milk foam onto a shot of espresso was invented, and it got its name by customers asking for their espresso to be “stained” or “marked” by some white milk foam. No stigma. No judgement. Just someone who wants their espresso a tiny bit extra fancy.

There’s some debate that the above origin story isn’t quite accurate; I’ve seen a few pundits and book writers claim that, in the 1920s, there were two ways to get “espresso”: straight, or with a bit of steamed milk (like 20ml or less). Because it was sometimes hard for the servers to distinguish between the two drinks, especially in a dark restaurant or cafe, the bar men of the day would also spoon a dollop of foam on top of the milked espresso to “mark” it or distinguish it for the waiter, and thus the macchiato name was born that way.

I tend to go with the former origin story over the latter, because espresso with milk, from the earliest days, was a cappuccino (which gained its current name in the late 1940s; prior to that it was just called an espresso with milk), and no self respecting male in Italy would order espresso with milk after breakfast.

As a side note, there was (and still today is) another macchiato drink in Italy: the latte macchiato. In Italy, a “latte” is just a bowl of steamed milk (unlike the espresso based drink of Starbucks fame); a latte macchiato is a bowl of steamed milk “marked” with a bit of espresso on top. But I digress. Back to the macchiato itself.

The North American Macchiato

In North America, the drink was always served the traditional way — especially in authentic Italian cafes, but also in most upscale specialty coffee houses — until the late 1990s when Seattle’s Espresso Vivace cafe started really pushing latte art. That latte art extended to every beverage served… the latte, the cappuccino, the mocha, and the macchiato. Vivace also pulled ristretto shots exclusively, so there was more room in the espresso cup to “play with” in pouring latte art into a tiny <60ml cup.

The pursuit of latte art in all forms is what really drove the engorgement of the macchiato in US and Canadian cafes. It was another kind of macho move; if you couldn’t pour latte art into a tiny espresso demitasse cup, well, you weren’t worth your salt. (I’m to blame as much as anyone for this kind of groove; I actually organized “latte art thimble pouring competitions” back in 2002 and 2003 – again, not kidding!). But even the best latte art pourers in the world are going to need 15, 20, 25ml or more of liquid and foam to create their art in the espresso cup, and because of this, the macchiato in North American cafes became a bigger drink, one where the ratio of espresso to milk froth and steamed milk is as much as 1:1 (though some places still keep it to a 1:0.5 ratio of espresso to milk).

Both drinks are fantastic in their own right. But both have a very different taste profile.

The traditional macchiato, the “marked” with a dollop of foam that has been frothed up to maintain as much lactose sweetness as possible, is an interesting journey into espresso tasting with the foam mainly influencing the crema.

The 1:>1 ratio macchiato is also fantastic, but the milk interacts with the entire drink and definitely changes the taste profile compared to a straight espresso. Give both a try and don’t even bother picking one over the other – just enjoy both in their own regard!