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A cortado is a double shot and about the same amount of warm milk. That comes to 4 to 4.5 oz, roughly 120 to 135 ml. Put it in a mug and it disappears at the bottom and goes cold. Put it in an espresso cup and it overflows. The drink has its own size, and a few glasses have become its standard.
Libbey Gibraltar, 4.5 oz
This is the glass that gave a drink its name. In San Francisco, a cortado served in a Gibraltar is simply called a Gibraltar. The cortado size is Libbey item 15248: 4.5 oz (133 ml), 3⅛ in tall and 3 in across the top, with a heavy base. Don’t mix it up with item 15241, the 7 oz rocks glass from the same range.
Libbey sells a home pack, the Libbey Gibraltar DuraTuff Cortado Glasses, 4.5 oz, set of 12. DuraTuff is a treatment that helps the glass survive hot drinks and dishwashers. A double shot plus equal milk fills it nearly to the rim.
Duralex Le Picardie
The French café tumbler with the faceted sides. It’s tempered glass, much tougher than ordinary glass and rated from -20 to 100°C. Three sizes matter for coffee:
- 90 ml: espresso, or a small piccolo.
- 130 ml: the classic cortado size, a near match for the Gibraltar.
- 160 ml: a generous cortado or a short flat white.
They come in sixes and they’re cheap. Search for Duralex Picardie 130 ml and check the capacity on the listing, because the bigger tumblers look the same in photos.
Double-Wall Glass
Double-wall glasses keep the drink hot and your fingers cool, and the coffee looks like it’s floating. The catch is size. Bodum’s Pavina line jumps from a 2.5 oz espresso glass to an 8 oz one, with no cortado size in between. The 8 oz suits a flat white. For a cortado it looks half empty.
Ceramic Alternatives
- ACME Roman Small Cup: 150 ml, wide and low, the New Zealand café look. The saucer is sold separately.
- Loveramics Urban Glass cortado glass: 120 ml, twisted glass, in clear, green or black.
Glass or Ceramic?
Glass shows off the layers and lets you see the milk meet the coffee. It also loses heat fast, and a cortado is meant to be drunk in a few minutes anyway. Ceramic holds heat longer and is easier to pick up. In Spain the bar decides, and both turn up. We wrote about why cafés serve coffee in glass if you want the history.
If you also make piccolos, the 90 ml Picardie covers that drink, and a set of each size costs less than one fancy mug.
Buy the Gibraltar if you want the classic. Buy the Picardie if you break things.