Flat White = Latte?
Recently, I was at a coffee shop and ordered a flat white. I received a drink with a ton of hot milk and two shots espresso — essentially a latte. When I pointed out that I thought there was a mistake with my drink because I received a latte instead of flat white. The barista told me confidently, and with supreme superiority, that I was mistaken. He said a flat white is identical to latte. No difference at all.
I order flat whites frequently from various other coffee shops, and I usually get a drink with more milk than a cortado but less than a latte. And the milk is mostly in the form of a creamy microfoam. This was the first time I received a latte when ordering a flat white. I’m not a barista though. Was this guy right? There’s no difference at all between a flat white and a latte?
I guess it’s possible that maybe I’ve just been ordering wrong all this time by ordering a flat white. But that wouldn’t explain why, with this one exception, I usually get a drink with less milk than a latte.