What is the difference between a flat white and a latte?

Mostly cup size and foam. CupTune's typical builds put a flat white near 175 ml with thin microfoam and a latte near 300 ml with a similar thin foam, so the latte has far more milk against a similar espresso base.

Is a flat white stronger than a latte?

Usually, in the sense that the same espresso is diluted by less milk. The espresso itself is often identical; the coffee-to-milk proportion is what differs.

Roughly equal espresso and warm milk with almost no foam, in a small glass. CupTune's typical build is 36 ml espresso and 36 ml milk in a 120 ml cup.

Are these drink definitions official?

No. No standards body defines them, and cafés vary widely. The volumes on this page are CupTune's authored typical builds, offered for planning rather than as definitions.

Four drinks, one espresso

Flat white, latte, cappuccino, cortado

Nobody governs these names. What separates a flat white from a latte is cup size and how much of the milk is foam — which is at least measurable.

Cross-sections at CupTune's authored typical builds, each filled against its own cup volume. Dark is espresso, mid is steamed milk, lightest is foam. The cup outlines are drawn to one height, so what you are comparing is the espresso-to-milk proportion rather than the absolute size of the glass.

There is no standard

Say this once and a lot of arguments dissolve: no standards body defines a flat white, a latte or a cappuccino. Cafés differ, countries differ, and the same chain differs between cities. What follows is CupTune's authored set of typical builds — useful for planning and for comparing, and not a definition anybody is obliged to follow.

The measurable difference

Two numbers separate these drinks: total cup volume and how much of the milk is foam. A cortado is small with almost no foam. A flat white is small with thin microfoam. A cappuccino is medium with a lot of foam. A latte is large with thin foam. The espresso base is often the same in all four, which is exactly why a latte tastes milkier — it is the same coffee spread through more milk.

Build them to your own cup

Café recipes assume café glassware you do not own. The milk drink builder takes whatever cup you have, in millilitres, and scales the espresso, milk and foam split to it — and gives you the dose that espresso implies at a 1:2 beverage ratio, so it connects back to the calculator.

Foam is texture, not volume

Microfoam is milk with air folded into it, not milk with a layer of bubbles on top. In a flat white and a cortado the foam should be thin enough that the drink pours as one liquid. In a cappuccino the foam is the point. That distinction is a steaming technique question, and it is the part of these drinks CupTune genuinely cannot help with — no calculator makes microfoam.

Where the numbers stop

These volumes are planning figures. They will not match your local café, they do not account for milk that expands differently by fat content or plant base, and they say nothing about temperature or texture. Take them as a starting proportion and adjust to the cup in your hand.