A latte is espresso with steamed milk poured in and a thin cap of foam on top. Coffee, here, means brewed coffee with no milk. So most of the difference is milk: a latte is one or two espresso shots in a drink of about 8 to 12 oz that is otherwise steamed milk.
The espresso underneath is the part the World Barista Championship rules define in most detail. They define it as “a beverage (around 1 fl. oz. / 30 ml) made from ground coffee, poured from 1 side of a double portafilter in 1 continuous extraction” (2025 WBC Official Rules and Regulations, §3.1). The same section says “Crema should be present when espresso is served, with no break in coverage” and sets the competition machines to brew “between 90.5-96 degrees Celsius (195-205 degrees Fahrenheit)” at a pressure “between 8.5 and 9.5 bars”: requirements for the contest, not part of the definition. That temperature range is close to the 90 to 96 °C our page on French press water temperature gives, from other standards.
Table of Contents
Coffee vs latte: caffeine, milk and calories
On USDA’s generic figures, a double-shot latte has more caffeine than an 8-ounce cup of brewed coffee, and the milk adds calories but no caffeine:
| Per serving | Brewed coffee, 8 fl oz | Latte with a double shot |
|---|---|---|
| What is in it | Ground coffee and water, brewed by drip, press or pour-over | Two espresso shots (about 2 fl oz) and steamed milk |
| Typical size | 8 fl oz (237 g), USDA’s cup; cafés vary | About 8 to 12 oz (Perfect Daily Grind: 236 to 340 ml) |
| Caffeine | About 95 mg | About 126 mg, all from the two shots; milk has none |
| Calories | About 2 | About 5 from the espresso, plus the milk: whole milk is about 149 a cup (244 g), 2% milk about 122 |
For most adults the FDA has cited 400 milligrams a day as “an amount not generally associated with negative effects”, and says there is wide variation in how sensitive people are to caffeine and how fast they eliminate it. This is general information, not medical advice. The FDA recommends talking to your health care provider if you are pregnant, trying to become pregnant or breastfeeding, or if you are concerned about a condition or a medication.
The figures are USDA FoodData Central’s SR Legacy entries 171890 (brewed coffee), 171891 (espresso), 171265 (whole milk) and 171267 (2% milk), from its downloadable dataset, and the arithmetic is ours: brewed coffee has 40 mg of caffeine per 100 g, so 237 g holds about 95 mg; espresso has 212 mg per 100 g, so 2 fl oz (59.2 g) holds about 126 mg and a single shot about 63 mg; whole milk has 61 kcal per 100 g and 2% milk 50. USDA’s espresso figure rests on two samples. Real cups vary far more: the FDA’s own table puts 12 fluid ounces of “coffee, regular brewed non-specialty” at “113 to 247 milligrams”.
Is there an official definition of a latte?
Only for a contest. The World Latte Art Championship rules say: “For the purpose of the WLAC, a latte is defined as a beverage combining espresso and steamed milk served in the provided latte cup.” Its official cup “will have a volume between 190ml – 300ml”, and competitors “may choose to use either a single espresso, double espresso, or ristretto for each latte” (2026 WLAC Rules and Regulations, §2.5). That is a contest rule, not a standard, and it sets no milk ratio or foam depth. The World Barista Championship rulebook defines its milk beverage like this, in full: “A milk beverage is a combination of 1 single shot of espresso (per the ‘Espresso’ section) and milk steamed with the WBC-provided espresso machine, which should produce a harmonious balance of rich, sweet milk and espresso.” No volume. No ratio. No foam depth.
We searched the full text of the 2024, 2025 and 2026 WBC Official Rules and Regulations and the 2026 WLAC rules: the word “cappuccino” appears zero times in any of them, and so does “flat white”. The competition that decides who the best barista in the world is does not name these drinks; the only definition of the latte we found is the contest rule above.
What exists instead is trade consensus, and it is openly contested. Perfect Daily Grind ran a whole piece in July 2026 on whether the industry should standardise these sizes at all, and its conclusion was that “The definitions of different milk drinks are shaped by history, geography, and shifting customer tastes rather than by a universal standard” and that “Full standardisation seems unlikely given regional differences in taste and preference” (PDG, “No more ‘large’ flat whites”). The same article reports two definitions of the cappuccino, though none of the latte: the Italian National Espresso Institute “defines it as 25ml of espresso topped with 100ml of steamed milk”, and “The Specialty Coffee Association (SCA) now defines it as a 150-180ml drink, with a single espresso shot and steamed milk, requiring at least 1cm of microfoam”.
The espresso-and-milk drinks, side by side
| Drink | What distinguishes it |
|---|---|
| Latte | The most milk of the group and the least foam. Perfect Daily Grind puts today’s version at “between 236ml and 340ml (8oz-12oz), topped with around 0.5cm of microfoam.” |
| Cappuccino | Smaller than a latte and distinctly foamier — PDG describes at least 1 cm of microfoam against roughly 0.5 cm for a latte, and gives the drink as “usually around 180ml (6oz)”. |
| Flat white | Smaller again, with a latte’s shallow foam rather than a cappuccino’s. PDG reports it as “generally around two-thirds milk”. Its origin is disputed between Australia and New Zealand and has never been settled. |
| Cortado | Espresso “cut” with a small amount of warm milk. Small, milk as a correction rather than as the body of the drink, and not sweetened as part of the recipe. |
| Cortadito | The Cuban version, and the sugar is the difference: it goes into the coffee before the milk arrives. Covered in full on what a cortadito is and the four types of Cuban coffee, which this page does not restate. |
One caveat on the cappuccino line. Perfect Daily Grind (in its flat white article) attributes the 1 cm microfoam figure to “the Specialty Coffee Association and the World Barista Championships”. We downloaded and searched the WBC rules ourselves and, as above, they do not mention the cappuccino at all — so treat that attribution as PDG’s, not as something we have confirmed in an SCA or WBC document.
The “1:2” you will see quoted is not an espresso-to-milk ratio
When a barista says they build a latte on a 1:2 ratio, they mean the espresso: one part dry coffee in the basket to two parts liquid out of it. One of PDG’s interviewees, in its flat white article, spells out a 1:2 shot in grams, “a 20g dose and 40g yield, extracted in 28 seconds”, which is what 1:2 means here. It says nothing about how much milk goes in afterwards.
It is also a different number from the brew ratio for filter coffee, which is far weaker by design. The Specialty Coffee Association’s home brewer standard specifies “The standard brew ratio of 55 g of coffee per 1.000 kg of 17±3°C water” (SCA Standard 310-2021, Home Coffee Brewers, §7.1.5) — about 1:18 by weight. Espresso at 1:2 and filter at 1:18 are not in competition; they are different drinks. And in both cases, stronger means more coffee, never less. Our page on how many beans per cup of coffee works the filter figure through in grams and beans, and notes that a coffee “cup” is 6 fl oz rather than 8.
Does a latte have less caffeine than a coffee?
Not necessarily: milk does not remove caffeine, and the shots set the dose. On USDA’s generic figures (the table above and the notes under it), a double-shot latte (about 126 mg) has more than an 8-ounce brewed coffee (about 95 mg), and a single-shot latte (about 63 mg) has less. The FDA’s 400 milligram line and its advice for pregnancy, breastfeeding and medication are directly under the table.
Milk lowers the concentration per millilitre while leaving the dose in the cup exactly where it was, and the dose is what you drink. The caffeine in a latte is set by how many shots went in; the caffeine in a filter coffee is set by the dose of grounds and the serving size. Either can be higher. A two-shot latte and a small filter coffee are not a fixed ordering, and you have to count shots and ounces rather than drink names. The FDA’s own figures for brewed coffee span more than a two-fold range for a single serving size, which is quoted on our page on what food group coffee is.
Making a latte without an espresso machine
The usual substitute is a stovetop moka pot, which produces a small, concentrated brew. It is a substitute: a moka pot is not espresso by the WBC’s definition above, because that espresso is poured from a portafilter. It gets you a coffee strong enough to survive milk, which for a home latte is the part that matters. Heating and frothing the milk separately, then pouring it in, gets you the rest of the way.
Affiliate disclosure, next to the link rather than in a footer. The product link below is a paid link. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. If you buy through it the site may be paid a commission and your price is unchanged. We have not bought, used or tested this product — it is named because it is the standard example of the type, not as a tested recommendation. The disclosure sits here because the FTC’s Endorsement Guides require that “In any communication using an interactive electronic medium, such as social media or the internet, the disclosure should be unavoidable” (16 CFR 255.0(f)).
Bialetti Moka Express Iconic Italian Stovetop Espresso Maker, 6 Cups, on Amazon
Nobody at this site has pulled a shot, steamed milk or compared these drinks side by side, so there are no tasting notes here that are ours. If you want the same espresso taken in the opposite direction, with hot water instead of milk, see what a long black is. If milk is the part giving you trouble, why almond milk curdles in coffee covers that.
Corrections to earlier versions of this page
- Caffeine. An earlier version said “A standard serving of coffee usually has more caffeine than a latte because lattes contain a lot of milk, which dilutes the caffeine concentration.” Its comparison table put coffee at “Generally higher” and latte at “Generally lower”. Milk does not remove caffeine; the answer is in the caffeine section above.
- An undisclosed affiliate link. An earlier version carried the same moka pot behind a shortened
amzn.tolink labelled only “Moka pot”, with no disclosure near it. It has been replaced with the full product URL under the product’s name, with the disclosure beside it. - Who defines a latte. An earlier version said “Nobody defines a latte, and that is not an oversight”. The World Latte Art Championship rules define one for their contest, as set out above.
- The WBC definition and the cappuccino figures. An earlier version gave the World Barista Championship’s brewing temperature and pressure as part of its definition of espresso, and used the pressure and the crema to say a moka pot does not meet it. They are requirements and machine settings for the contest, not part of the definition. It also gave “25ml of espresso topped with 100ml of steamed milk” as what a cappuccino was in early-1900s Italy; Perfect Daily Grind reports those figures as the Italian National Espresso Institute’s definition.
- Two origin dates with no source. The page stated that coffee’s “inception… traces back to Ethiopia, around the 9th century” and that in “the 20th century in Italy… the delightful concoction known as a latte was born”. Its comparison table then printed “Ethiopia” and “Italy” as bare facts. The latte’s history is not that tidy: Perfect Daily Grind describes it as having “started in 17th-century Europe as plain coffee with milk, then evolved once it reached the US.” The origin row has been dropped rather than replaced with a different guess. For Ethiopia’s actual documented role in coffee, see Ethiopian coffee beans.
- Invented tasting notes. The page told readers that arabica has “notes of sugar, fruit, and berries” and that robusta has “a grain-like overtone and peanutty aftertaste”, and elsewhere assigned each brewing method its own flavour verdict — none of it measured or cited, and nobody at this site tasted any of it. What is actually known about the two species is on arabica and robusta.
- Nutrition claims stated as fact. “Lattes, due to the added milk, contain more calories and a significant amount of protein and calcium” is directionally obvious but was given without any figure or source, and “significant” is doing work it cannot support. The size of the effect depends entirely on which milk and how much.
- A “Conclusion” heading, an FAQ block, and an opening paragraph about the “fascinating journey of beverages”. All removed. The FAQ’s one genuinely useful answer — that you can build a latte on strong brewed coffee if you have no espresso — is in the section above, with the caveat that a moka pot is the closer substitute.
