If you could only order one coffee for the rest of your life, the cortado would be a smart pick. It’s an espresso cut with about as much warm milk, small enough to finish in a few sips, and it doesn’t hide anything. You still taste the beans and the roast. The milk just rounds off the edges.
This blog is for people who care about that little glass. The name comes in two halves. Espresso is the coffee itself, from the farm where the beans grow to the machine that turns them into a shot. Cortado is the cut: the milk, and all the ways people drink their coffee, from a quick one at an Italian bar counter to three slow rounds from a clay jebena in an Ethiopian home.
You’ll find the whole cortado family here, from the Gibraltar in San Francisco to the sugary cortadito at a Miami coffee window. There are machine and grinder guides for home baristas and deep dives into varieties from Geisha to robusta. We also keep an eye on coffee prices, because sooner or later they end up in your cup.
If you’re new, start with the post on what a cortado is.
Pull up a stool.