
I usually settled for coffee with a touch of cream until my Goldilocks-like hunt led me to cortados and flat whites, where the ratio of coffee to milk was just right. I never cared for straight up espresso no milk at all. What I do know that life before the two coffee drinks-found in Houston at places like Blacksmith, Southside Espresso, Inversion, and Revival Market-was a gloomy and dismal affair. The excessive amount of caffeine I consume on a daily basis has surely fried those circuits in my brain by now, although I'm fairly certain one of the two was given to me by a kind barista at Catalina Coffee one morning when I couldn't make up my mind. I don't remember the first time I ordered a cortado.

I don't remember the first time I ordered a flat white.

A typical flat white with telltale textured milk.
