- published: 27 Sep 2011
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Caffè macchiato (Italian pronunciation: [kafˈfɛ makˈkjaːto]), sometimes called espresso macchiato, is a coffee drink, made out of espresso with a small amount of milk.
'Macchiato' simply means 'marked' or 'stained', and in the case of caffè macchiato, this means literally 'espresso stained/marked with milk'. Traditionally it is made with one shot of espresso, and the small amount of added milk was the 'stain'. However, later the 'mark' or 'stain' came to refer to the foamed milk that was put on top to indicate the beverage has a little milk in it, usually about a teaspoon. In fact, a caffè macchiato in Portuguese is named café pingado which means coffee with a drop, the drop of milk.
The reason this coffee drink got its name was that the baristas needed to show the serving waiters the difference between an espresso and an espresso with a tiny bit of milk in it; the latter was 'marked'.
In the United States, 'macchiato' is more likely to describe latte macchiato, and thus arises the common confusion that 'macchiato' literally means 'foam', or that a macchiato must necessarily have foam. (As the term 'macchiato' to describe this type of coffee predates the common usage of foam in coffee by centuries, the staining 'agent' the additive that lightens the dark espresso, is traditionally the milk, not the foam).