Cortado

A cortado is one of the simplest coffee drinks there is: espresso and warm milk in equal parts, about 4 oz (120 ml) in all, with the milk steamed just to temperature rather than whipped into foam. The name is Spanish, from cortar, “to cut”, because the milk cuts the edge off the espresso. It began as a working person’s coffee in Spain and is now on specialty menus everywhere, sometimes under other names. Here’s how to make one, and how it differs from its cousins.

The short version

• Equal parts espresso and milk, usually a double shot and about 2 oz of milk.
• About 4 oz in all; there’s no large size.
• Milk steamed to temperature, with no thick foam.
• From Spain; the name means “cut”.
• Called a Gibraltar in parts of the US, after the glass.

What’s in a cortado?

Barista Magazine’s description:

Part	A cortado
Espresso	A double shot, about 2 oz (60 ml)
Milk	The same amount, about 2 oz
Milk texture	Steamed only until hot, not stretched into foam
Size	About 4 oz (120 ml), always
Ratio	1 to 1

That equal-parts version is how specialty cafés make it. In Spain itself, guides describe less milk: Devour Tours calls a café cortado “a small cup of espresso with just a splash of milk”, and Escuela Hablamos says it’s like a café con leche “but with far less milk”, an espresso with just a dash.

Where	How much milk	Source
Specialty cafés	Equal parts espresso and milk, about 4 oz	Barista Magazine
Spanish bars	Espresso with just a splash or dash of milk	Devour Tours; Escuela Hablamos

The milk is there for balance, not texture. Barista Magazine says it softens espresso’s natural acidity and bitterness, and its lactose adds a little sweetness without any sugar, so the coffee’s own flavours still come through. Coffee professional Aaron Duckworth told the magazine that the “aromatic fruit bomb of an Ethiopian espresso will still be there”, only slightly sweetened.

How do you make a cortado at home?

1. Pull a double espresso into a small glass or cup. See our espresso guide.
2. Steam the same amount of milk just until it’s hot. Don’t let in much air: there isn’t room for a head of foam in a 4 oz glass, Barista Magazine points out.
3. Pour it in, equal parts, and drink it while it’s hot.

Don’t scale it up. “A double shot of espresso is roughly 2 ounces, so an equal amount of milk puts you at 4 ounces,” barista Ruben Pablo told Barista Magazine. Make it bigger by adding milk, and it’s no longer a cortado.

Where does the cortado come from?

Spain, but Barista Magazine’s two writers tell it slightly differently:

Question	One account	Another account
Where in Spain	Spain in general (Gemma Boothroyd)	The Basque region (Eddie P. Gomez)
When	Early 20th century, popular with workers on short breaks (Boothroyd)	Not dated (Gomez)
How it spread	To Portugal, then to Latin America during colonisation (Boothroyd)	Across the Iberian Peninsula, from Galicia to Portugal, then Latin America (Gomez)

Boothroyd notes that the Spanish drink much more milk than Italians and happily drink milky coffee after 11am, and that the cortado was originally meant to be drunk sitting down. By the end of the 20th century, Gomez writes, cortados were being served around the world.

What’s a Gibraltar?

A cortado by another name. In 2010, Barista Magazine recounts, the New York Times Magazine traced the American version to Steve Ford of Blue Bottle Coffee in San Francisco, who made a cortado-like drink and named it after the glass it was served in: the 4½-ounce Gibraltar, made by Libbey. It reached New York when Ford worked a few shifts at Cafe Grumpy.

The cortado has other relatives too. Barista Magazine names the piccolo in Australia, the cortadito in Cuba (with sweetened espresso) and the noisette in France as cortado-like drinks.

Cortado vs other espresso drinks

• Espresso macchiato: espresso with only a little milk.
• Flat white: about twice as much milk as coffee, with silky microfoam.
• Cappuccino: a single shot under a thick cap of foam.
• Café cubano: Cuba’s sweet, foamy coffee.

Explore every drink in the espresso drinks chapter.