Australia and New Zealand have been arguing about who invented it since the eighties and neither side is going to concede. What is not in dispute is the shape of it: a short milk coffee where the coffee still leads, poured with silky microfoam all the way through. It is the drink most cafes are judged on, because there is very little in it to hide behind.

1. Shot into the cappuccino cup
2. Textured milk, glossy and silky
3. About 5mm of microfoam

Named after the Capuchin friars, whose robes were the colour of coffee with milk stirred through it. In Italy it is a morning drink and ordering one after lunch marks you out. What we make here has drifted a long way from that and is better for it: a proper milk coffee with chocolate through the pour, closer to a flat white with more air than to anything you would be handed in Rome.

1. Chocolate into the cup first, straight onto the shot
2. Steam the milk glossy, the same as a flat white, only a touch more air
3. Pour textured so the chocolate lifts and runs through the pattern
4. Finish with the art showing

Caffe latte just means milk coffee, and in Italy that is closer to what a kid drinks at breakfast than anything on our menu. The Australian version is a proper coffee with more milk in it, served in a glass, and it is where most people start. Do not treat it as the easy one. More milk means less room for error in the texture.

1. The double into the latte glass
2. Textured milk, thin foam
3. Pour it slow and finish with the art

The name comes from the port of Mokha in Yemen, which shipped coffee for centuries and gave its name to a bean that carried natural chocolate notes. Somewhere along the line people decided to stop waiting for the coffee to taste like chocolate and just add some. The chocolate goes into the cold milk and gets steamed through it, which is the only way to stop a gritty last mouthful.

1. One heaped teaspoon of chocolate straight into the cold milk
2. Steam the milk with the chocolate in it
3. Pull the double into the cup
4. Pour the chocolate milk onto the shot and finish with the art

Milan, the turn of the last century, and a machine built to make one cup fast instead of a pot for the room. That is the whole idea, and it has not changed. Nine bars of pressure through twenty grams of coffee in under half a minute. We love it because there is nothing between you and the roast. No milk, no sugar, no hiding a stale bag or a lazy tamp.

1. Warm the cup
2. Pull the double straight into it, the full 38 grams
3. Serve it the moment it stops running, with water on the side

Ristretto means restricted, and that is exactly what you are doing to the water. Same coffee, same basket, you just stop the shot early and leave the tail behind. What comes out is the sweet, syrupy front of the extraction without the thin bitter end that arrives last. It is why so much of the milk coffee on an Australian bar is built on one.

1. Same 20 gram dose, less water through it
2. Shut the shot off early, around 30 grams
3. Sweeter, thicker, and the bitter end never arrives

Australia and New Zealand invented this one, and the reason is worth knowing. Cafes here wanted a long coffee that still tasted like espresso, so they flipped the americano around and put the water in first. The crema lands on top instead of being smashed through, the aromatics stay where you can smell them, and the drink holds together to the last mouthful.

1. Hot water into the tulip cup first, about two thirds
2. Pour the double on top so the crema survives
3. Serve it with the crema still sitting

The story goes that American soldiers stationed in Italy found the local espresso too intense and asked for hot water to loosen it off. The name stuck, a bit sarcastically. Pouring the water on top breaks the crema and gives you a rounder, softer cup. Not worse than a long black, just different, and the difference is entirely in which one goes into the cup first.

1. Double into the large cappuccino cup first
2. Top with hot water off the machine
3. The crema breaks, and that is the point

Macchiato means marked or stained. The original reason was practical. Italian bars needed a way to tell an espresso from an espresso with a touch of milk in it, so they marked the cup with a spoon of foam. That is still all it is. A shot, a mark of milk, nothing else. Anyone ordering it wants the coffee, so do not be generous with the jug.

1. The espresso, straight into the espresso cup
2. Let the crema settle on top of it
3. One spoon of foam over that, nothing else

The Australian answer to a macchiato that felt too small. Same coffee, same mark of milk, just a little water in the cup first so there is a drink there rather than two mouthfuls. It used to be poured down the side of a tall glass so the layers stacked, and almost nobody does that any more. It lives in the tulip now, which suits it better anyway.

1. A little hot water into the tulip cup first
2. The same espresso as a macchiato, poured on top
3. A touch of textured milk and a little foam to mark it

This one is close to a Western Australian institution and it confuses baristas from anywhere else in the country. A long mac topped up is not a long mac. It is a long mac with the cup filled the rest of the way with milk, which turns it into something closer to a strong flat white in a tulip cup. If somebody orders a long mac, ask. It saves a remake.

1. Double espresso into the long black cup
2. Top up with textured milk to fill the cup
3. A thin band of foam on top

Sydney, early two thousands, and the drink came out of the bar rather than the menu. Baristas needed to taste what a new coffee did in milk without drinking six lattes before ten in the morning, so they put a double in a small glass and topped it. Customers saw it, wanted it, and it stayed.

1. The double straight into the piccolo glass
2. Fill with silky textured milk
3. Thin foam, about 5mm

Melbourne's drink, and one of the few genuinely defined by its cup. A double in the tulip, poured once, no top up and no extra foam. The single pour is the point. You get one shot at the texture and the ratio is fixed by the cup, so a magic is either right or it is a flat white with ideas. We love it because it is honest.

1. The double straight into the tulip cup
2. Fill with silky textured milk
3. No extra foam, one even pour

Real masala chai is black tea simmered with ginger, cardamom, cinnamon and pepper, and in India it is boiled with the milk rather than added to it. What sits on a cafe bar is a concentrate or a powder built to survive a morning rush. Treat it with the same care as coffee. Into the cold milk, steamed properly, and it is a genuinely good drink.

1. Two just over level teaspoons of chai into the cold milk
2. Steam the milk with the chai in it
3. Pour into the cup and dust the top

A chai latte with a shot through it. Simple idea, and it does something neither drink does on its own, because the spice and the roast land in different places. The shot is there to sit behind the chai, not in front of it, which is why it is a single.

1. Chai into the cold milk, then steam the two together
2. Split the double and put one half in the cup
3. Pour the chai milk onto the shot
4. Finish with a sprinkle of chai over the top

The oldest drink on this list by a distance. Cacao was drunk in Mesoamerica for close to three thousand years before anyone in Europe saw a bean. Ours is a lot sweeter than theirs was. The technique is identical to the mocha. Chocolate into the cold milk, then steam the two together.

1. Two heaped teaspoons of chocolate straight into the cold milk
2. Steam the milk with the chocolate in it
3. Pour into the mug, dust the top
4. Torch a marshmallow and sit it on top

An Australian invention from the nineties and one of the smartest things a cafe ever did. A kid gets their own drink, and the family comes back. Ours is cold and dry out of the cream gun, which is faster on a rush, makes no mess and wastes nothing. Warm is there if they ask for it. Either way it goes out cooler than an adult drink, because they will not wait for it to cool down and 65 degrees will burn them.

1. Cold and dry is our default. Cream gun, four fifths milk to one fifth cream
2. Two gas cartridges, shake it well, keep it refrigerated
3. It comes out like a Mr Whippy. Chocolate dust and marshmallows on top
4. For a warm one: a small amount of textured milk in the cup, warm only, dust on top, marshmallow on the saucer

Affogato means drowned, which is the whole recipe. Two scoops of vanilla, a fresh double poured over the top, and the contrast between hot and cold does the work. It sits somewhere between a coffee and a dessert and it sells best after lunch. Pull the shot when it goes out, not before, or the ice cream is already gone by the time it lands.

1. Two scoops of vanilla ice cream in the glass
2. Pull the double fresh
3. Serve the shot alongside so they pour it themselves

Cold milk, ice, and a double poured last so it lands on top and sinks slowly through. That pour is not a garnish. The customer gets to see the drink before they stir it, and the layers are most of the reason it looks worth what you charge for it.

1. Fill the glass with ice first, right to the top
2. Three quarter fill with cold milk
3. Add the double shot

The cold version of the drink we already do properly. Ice, cold water, double on top. The only real mistake is reaching for hot water because the kettle is closer. Hot water melts the ice on contact, and what you hand over is a weak, watery coffee that was strong for about four seconds.

1. Fill the glass with ice first, right to the top
2. Three quarter fill with cold water
3. Add the double shot

Ask for an iced coffee almost anywhere else and you get cold coffee. Ask in Australia and you get ice cream, cold milk, a double shot and usually cream on top. It is closer to a dessert than a coffee and we are not apologising for it. It is one of the highest margin drinks on any board and it sells hardest on exactly the days everything else slows down.

1. Two scoops of ice cream, or one if they ask for it lighter
2. Cold milk
3. Double shot over the top
4. Whipped cream and a coffee bean on top

The iced coffee with chocolate run around the inside of the glass before anything else goes in. Do not stir it through. The point is that the customer can see the chocolate against the glass, so it reads as a mocha before they have touched it. Small thing, and it is most of the reason people order the second one.

1. Chocolate syrup around the inside of the glass
2. Two scoops of ice cream, then cold milk
3. Double shot over the top
4. Whipped cream and a dusting over the top

The one the kids order, and the one that keeps a table of four from becoming a table of two. Same build as the iced mocha without the shot, which means your staff only have to learn it once. Do not treat it as the throwaway drink on the board. It is often the reason the family stopped at your place rather than the one up the road.

1. Chocolate syrup around the inside of the glass
2. Two scoops of ice cream, then cold milk
3. Whipped cream and a dusting over the top

Blend it, do not stir it. Chai concentrate and cold milk stirred together leaves grit in the bottom of the glass, and cold liquid will not dissolve what hot milk does. Thirty seconds in the blender fixes it completely. Over ice cream in a tall glass, dusted on top, it is one of the better summer drinks nobody puts on their board.

1. Blend 200ml cold milk with two spoons of chai
2. Two scoops of ice cream in the glass
3. Pour the blend over
4. Dust the top, straw and spoon

Blended coffee has a reputation problem because most versions are sugar with a coffee flavour. Ours does not need to be. Ice cream, ice, cold milk, syrup and a real double, blended until there is nothing left to chew. Get it properly smooth. Ice shards melt fast and a frappe that separates in the glass on the way to the table is a remake waiting to happen.

1. Two scoops of ice cream, cold milk and a little ice
2. Syrup and a double shot
3. Blend until smooth, then pour

Coffee steeped in cold water for twelve to eighteen hours instead of brewed hot. Without heat you extract far less of the acidity and almost none of the bitterness, so what you get is sweet, heavy and very easy to drink. It is made the day before, which is the catch. Keep it refrigerated, use it inside three days, and after that it goes flat and tastes like it.

1. Steeped 12 to 18 hours, coarse grind, 1:8 with cold water
2. Strain it and keep the concentrate refrigerated
3. Cut it with water at the glass, to taste
4. Fill the glass with ice and pour

The Kyoto method, and it looks like laboratory glassware because it more or less is. Water drips through the bed at about a drop a second, taking hours to make a small amount of coffee. It comes out cleaner and considerably stronger than cold brew. Serve it smaller than you think, over ice, and charge for it accordingly, because the time in it is real.

1. Dripped slowly through a tower, roughly one drop a second
2. Fill the glass with ice
3. Three quarters cold drip

Filter went out of fashion for a decade and came back once cafes worked out that a good batch brew is faster than pour over and better than most of what people make at home. Sixty grams to the litre, clean gear, and hold it no longer than forty five minutes. Stewed batch is the fastest way to lose a filter drinker for good.

1. 60g per litre, medium grind, 93C water
2. Brew and hold no longer than 45 minutes
3. Serve black, milk on the side if they ask