How to Make a Cortado: Espresso Cut With Warm Milk

A cortado is espresso "cut" with a roughly equal amount of warm milk. To make one, pull a double espresso into a small glass, steam a little milk until it is warm — about 55–60 °C — letting in almost no air, and pour about as much milk as there is coffee into the shot.

The name is the past participle of the Spanish cortar, to cut, in the sense of diluting. It is one of the simplest drinks on any menu, and one of the most useful: strong enough to taste plainly of coffee, smooth enough to drink without sugar.

The recipe

1. Warm a small glass or cup.
2. Pull a double espresso into it — about 36 g of liquid from 18 g of coffee. The dial-in guide explains how to get there.
3. Steam the milk with almost no air. Start with the tip a little deeper than you would for a latte, so the milk spins and heats without stretching. Stop when the jug is warm — about 55–60 °C, the lower end of the range in the steaming guide.
4. Pour about 40 ml of milk into the espresso, close to the surface, so it blends in and leaves only a thin layer of foam.
5. Drink it straight away.

What makes a cortado a cortado is that the milk is steamed but not frothed. In the words of Wikipedia's summary of the drink, the milk is "not frothy and 'texturized' as in many Italian coffee drinks". There should be no cap of foam and no deep layer of microfoam — just warm milk folded into coffee.

How strong a cortado is

Coffee strength is measured as total dissolved solids, the share of the drink by weight that is dissolved coffee. Espresso is typically 6–12%; filter coffee about 1.15–1.35%.

• A single 30 g shot at 10% carries about 3 g of dissolved coffee. Cut with 30 g of milk, the drink is about 5% dissolved coffee.
• A double 36 g shot with about 36–40 ml of milk lands in the same place, at roughly 5%.
• For comparison, a flat white with the same double shot and 130 ml of milk is about 2%, and a 350 ml latte about 1.2%.

So a cortado is roughly four times as concentrated as a typical filter coffee and more than twice a flat white. It does not taste four times as strong, because half of it is milk. In a 2025 study in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, adding milk at 30% by weight to coffee reduced the bitterness and the roasted and burnt notes that tasters perceived, while adding dairy flavours of its own. A cortado has even more milk than that, which is why it tastes rounder than its strength suggests.

Temperature matters too. A cortado is mixed, not layered, and milk at around 55–60 °C adds body without making the drink so hot that you have to wait for it.

Cortado, macchiato, flat white: where the line falls

The three drinks overlap, and names vary by city, but the milk tells them apart.

In Spain itself, the boundary with the macchiato is blurrier: a cortado there is often just a single espresso with a splash of milk, which is close to an Italian macchiato or a French noisette. In specialty cafés elsewhere, the cortado has settled into the equal-parts drink described above. The macchiato guide and the flat white guide cover its neighbours.

Variations

The Gibraltar

In San Francisco, roasters — first Blue Bottle Coffee, later Ritual Coffee Roasters and others — served cortados in a 135 ml (4½ oz) tumbler made by the Libbey Glass Company called the Gibraltar, and the glass gave the drink its local name. A Gibraltar is typically about 60 ml of double espresso with roughly the same amount of steamed milk — some descriptions give a little more, about 75 ml — and a little more foam than a Spanish cortado.

The Cuban cortadito

In Cuba, a cortadito is a standard 30 ml shot cut with heated sweetened condensed milk, a preserved milk that was easier to come by than fresh milk. It is usually served in a small glass with a metal base and wire handle. Cuban Americans brought it to Miami's Little Havana in the 1960s, where it is now part of everyday life. A version made only with condensed milk is often called a bombón. A cortadito is sweet; the classic cortado is not.

The Australian piccolo

Australia's piccolo latte, or simply piccolo, is a single ristretto in a small macchiato glass filled with steamed milk in the style of a latte — a cortado-sized drink with latte-style microfoam.

Other names

The same idea goes by tallat in Catalan, ebaki in Basque, and pingado or garoto in Portuguese. Portugal's larger galão uses about one part coffee to three parts milk.

Caffeine and calories

Milk adds no caffeine. At the USDA's average of 212 mg per 100 g of restaurant espresso, a single 30 g shot holds about 64 mg and a 36 g double about 76 mg — though café shots vary widely and a large double can carry far more. The caffeine guide puts those in context.

With so little milk, a cortado is light: 40 ml of whole milk at the USDA's 61 kcal per 100 g is about 25 kcal, and the espresso adds about 3 kcal more.

Without an espresso machine

A moka pot makes the closest substitute. Brew it, then cut it with an equal amount of milk warmed in a small pan until it steams but does not boil. Moka coffee is strong but less concentrated than espresso, so the result will be milder than a café cortado — still a good, small, milky coffee. For the rest of the menu, see the types of coffee drinks guide.