A true flat white is a double espresso of about 50 milliliters with roughly 130 milliliters of steamed milk and a thin, glossy layer of microfoam around five millimeters deep, served in a 175 to 200 milliliter cup. That makes it stronger than a latte and far less foamy than a cappuccino, and its smooth surface made it the drink of choice for latte art. Oddly, the name appears first in England: a character orders a flat white in the 1963 British thriller Danger by My Side, and the Oxford English Dictionary records a 1971 print use. The modern drink, though, took shape in Australia and New Zealand in the 1980s.

Australia’s case includes a May 1983 Sydney review praising the flat white at Miller’s Treat, Alan Preston putting it on the menu at Moors Espresso Bar in 1985 after Italian cane farmers in Queensland asked for white coffee flat, and a Canberra Parliament House cafeteria sign reading flat white only when seasonal milk would not froth. New Zealand points to Cafe DKD in Auckland and a botched cappuccino at Bar Bodega in Wellington in 1989. Expats carried the drink to London by 2005, Starbucks trialed it in the UK in 2010 and launched it in North America in 2015, and economist Douglas McWilliams named the flat white economy.

• A 1984 Sydney article told readers a caffe latte was basically their local flat white.
• Cafe DKD’s founders said they learned the name from a friend who had worked in Sydney.
• Hugh Jackman co-owned a New York cafe to help push the Australian drink to Americans.
• In 2024 one in three UK coffee drinkers named the flat white as their main order.
• Pret A Manger sold 8 million flat whites in a year, close to its 9 million cappuccinos.