Macchiato Coffee

Want to know what caffè macchiato is, how to prepare it at home or at the café, and how to enjoy it at its best? Today’s reading is entirely dedicated to this wonderful beverage, one of the most requested in Italian coffee culture.

What is Caffè Macchiato

Caffè macchiato is nothing more than an espresso coffee to which a small amount of hot milk foam is added (often called milk cream by baristas) to form a spot, hence the name.

There are many variations to the recipe, but one of the most famous is “iced caffè macchiato,” where cold milk is added to the espresso instead of hot milk foam.

How to Prepare Caffè Macchiato at the Café

To prepare caffè macchiato at the café, you need to know how to prepare a good espresso and understand the basics of milk steaming. For this purpose, we recommend reading the article “how to steam milk at the café” and the series of readings on false myths regarding milk steaming. It is fundamentally important to have taken at least a basic barista course to learn the basic information for producing a good espresso and perfect microfoam.

First, you need to steam the milk, take an espresso cup (usually with a capacity of ~ 6 cl) and prepare an espresso coffee inside it. Then pour a “spot” of milk into the cup; although there is no strictly correct dose, you can use approximately 1.5 cl as a guideline.

Once this is done, the coffee is ready and all that remains is to serve it to our customer!

How to Prepare it at Home

Without professional equipment, the matter becomes more complicated and certainly more varied. The quickest and simplest situation is preparing caffè macchiato with a small home super-automatic machine, where you just need to follow the instructions to quickly prepare the caffè macchiato.

If you don’t have a super-automatic machine, don’t worry—you can still find alternative methods to enjoy an excellent macchiato.

First, you need to prepare the coffee, whether in pods or capsules according to personal taste or available materials. For this purpose, we recommend reading the article “best coffee pods“.

If you don’t have the equipment to prepare espresso coffee, you can fall back on a simple coffee with a moka pot. For the best instructions on coffee preparation, reading the article “Coffee with Moka” is essential.

Once the coffee is prepared and poured into an espresso cup of ~ 6cl, for a volume of ~ 2 or 3 cl of coffee according to your taste, you need to steam the milk. To learn how to steam milk at home, this video explains the two main home methods (in this case used for preparing cappuccino at home).

Once the milk is steamed and the coffee is prepared, pour about 1.5 cl of hot steamed milk into the cup and the preparation of caffè macchiato is complete—all that remains is to taste it!

How to Best Enjoy Caffè Macchiato

The temperature of the cup at the time of service is of fundamental importance. What you can try is testing various temperatures to understand which one is most pleasing to taste. Keep in mind that higher temperatures would lead to faster drainage of liquids present in the milk foam, and a lower temperature would instead lead to a shorter half-life of the foam (the foam tends to break down more quickly).

This coffee should also not be stirred, as this action would lead to rapid breakdown of the foam, which would then appear less full-bodied and soft but more liquid and inconsistent.